Ages of legal importance: Implications in relation to birth registration and age assessment practices

Introduction

A birth identity document entitles a person to the legal and social benefits of a society. In doing so, it helps to safeguard children and young adults against illegal criminal activities by providing them with appropriate age-related services following criminal charges and subsequent sentencing if found guilty of an indictable offense. The ages of legal importance vary between countries, but the most important among them are the minimum age of criminal responsibility, age of majority, legal age to consent to have sexual relationships, to consume alcohol, and to marry. The registration of birth, which is considered to be a fundamental human right, is not practiced in many countries. ¹ According to UNICEF, by 2012, only 65% of children under 5 years of age in the world were registered. ² The increase in the number of unregistered children has led to violations of human rights and the inability of these children to seek appropriate age-related services. Whether the issue of age estimation is legal or forensic, it has become a common practice for professionals to seek the expertise of dentists and other medical practitioners to provide age estimation. In this report, we present latest data on the ages of legal importance in the major countries of the world with particular emphasis on birth registration and age assessment practices.

Minimum age of criminal responsibility

Minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR) or age of minority is the age below which a child is presumed to be incapable of committing a criminal offense. This age is based on the intellectual development and the capacity of a child to commit a crime. It indicates that a child cannot be convicted under the existing laws, irrespective of the severity of the crime. Among different countries there is a huge variation in this age that ranges between 6 and 18 years; however, in most countries, 10 years has been fixed by statute as the MACR. This age is important because recently there has been an increase in the number of crimes committed by children at this 10-year threshold. In England, in the year 2007 alone, more than 3000 children aged 10 years committed crimes. ³ Within the United States, the MACR ranges between 6 and 12 years, depending on the state. Most of the countries in South-East Asia including India, Myanmar, Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore still maintain the MACR at 7 years. The Republic of Iran is the only country that has a gender-specific MACR, which is 9 years for females and 15 years for males. In recent years, the perception of children's sense of right and wrong has resulted in legislative changes to increase this age. For example, recently, Scotland increased the MACR from 7 to 10 years and Pakistan from 7 to 12 years.

Age of majority

The age of majority is the age that in legal terms separates a child from an adult. It ranges from 16 years to 21 years, but in most countries it is fixed at 18 years, following the reformation of common law rule established during the medieval period in England. ⁴ The age of majority of 18 years is acknowledged by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). However, this is not universally accepted. For example, in Thailand, Japan and New Zealand, the age of majority is 20 years. By contrast, it is less than 18 years in Krygyzstan and Cuba, while in the United States of America, the age of majority varies between the states. Although the age of majority determines that an individual has adulthood status, in the legal context certain activities require a higher age. This applies to their right to consent for sex or medical treatment, to consume alcohol, to vote and to marry (see Table 1).

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Table 1.

Ages of legal importance and birth registration practices in the major countries of the world.

Country	Minimum age of criminal responsibility (years)	Presumption of incapability of committing crime (doli incapax) (years)	Consent for sex (years)	Attaining majority (years)	Consent to marry (years)		Birth registration* (%)
					Male	Female
Afghanistan	12	–	18	18	18	18	37
Algeria	13	–	16	19	21	19	99
Argentina	16	–	13	18	18	18	91
Australia	10	14	16	18	18	18	100
Austria	14	–	14	18	18	18	100
Bangladesh	9	12	14	–	21	–	31
Brazil	18	–	14	18	18	18	93
Belgium	18	–	16	–	18	–	100
Canada	12	–	16	18	18	18	100
China	14	18	14	18	22	18	–
China (Hong Kong SAR)	7	14	16	18	21	18	–
China (Macau SAR)	16	–	16	–	–	–	–
Colombia	18	–	14	18	18	18	97
Congo	13	–	–	–	–	–	91
Denmark	15	–	15	18	18	18	100
Egypt	7	–	18	21	18	21	99
Ethiopia	9	–	15	–	18	–	7
Finland	15	–	16	18	18	18	100
France	13	–	15	18	18	18	100
Germany	14	–	14	18	18	18	100
Greece	12	–	15		18		100
India	7	12	18	18	21	18	41
Indonesia	8	–	16	17	19	17	67
Iran	9	–	Marriage	18	18	18	99
Israel	12	–	14	18	18	18	100
Italy	14	–	14	18	18	18	100
Japan	14	–	13	20	20	20	100
Kenya	8	–	18	18	16	18	60
Luxembourg	18	–	16	–	–	–	100
Malaysia	10	–	16	18	21	18	–
Mexico	12	–	12	18	20	18	93
Morocco	12	–	15	–	18	–	85
Myanmar	7	–	–	–	–	–	72
Nepal	10	–	16	18	21	18	42
Netherlands	12	–	16	18	18	18	100
Nigeria	7	–	13		18		42
Pakistan	12	12	Marriage	18	18	18	27
Peru	18	–	14	18	18	18	96
Philippines	15	–	18	18	–	18	90
Poland	15	–	15	18	21	18	100
Portugal	16	–	14	18	18	18	100
Republic of Korea	14	–	13	19	18	19	–
Republic of Taiwan	14	18	16	20	–	20	–
Republic of Tanzania	10	–	18	18	18	18	16
Russian Federation	14	–	16	18	18	18	100
Singapore	7	–	16	21	21	21	–
Spain	16	–	13	18	18	18	100
South Africa	7	14	16	18	18	18	95
Sudan	7	–	Marriage	18	Puberty	18	59
Thailand	7	–	18	20	17	20	100
Turkey	12	–	18	18	17	18	94
Uganda	12	–	18	–	–	–	30
Ukraine	14	–	16	18	18	18	100
United Kingdom (Scotland)	12	–	16	16	16	16	100
United Kingdom (England)	10	–	16	18	18	18	100
United Kingdom (Wales)	10	–	16	18	18	18	100
United States	6-12	–	14-18	18	17-19	15-19	100
Uzbekistan	13	–	16	–	–	–	100
Vietnam	14	–	18	16	20	18	95

Following a crime, if the criminal is identified as an adult, legal procedures are according to adult law. Conversely, if below 18 years of age, legal proceedings follow the juvenile justice system. It has been presumed that an individual attains complete physical and mental maturity only when they have completed 18 years of life. However, there are many cases where immature individuals over 18 have been given some benefit because of their obvious immaturity. This definition is based on the chronological age; however, a person might reach ‘maturity’ above or below this age. Scientific research has identified secular trends in development; children and emerging adults belonging to the current generation are both physically and mentally more advanced than their counterparts who lived in earlier decades and centuries. ⁵ This raises the question on the applicability of the age of 18 years as the defining age at which to accept a person as an adult.

Other legally important ages

The other significant ages of legal importance include the legal age to consume alcohol and tobacco, to consent for medical treatment, consent to sexual intercourse and to marry. There exists considerable variation in these legal ages between countries. For example, in Thailand, the legal age of majority is 20 years but an individual is eligible to marry as early as 17 years. ⁶ In the United States of America, the legal age to marry without parental consent is 18 years in most of the states, except in Mississippi where the age to marry is set at 17 years for males and 15 years for females, and in the state of Nebraska, where the legal age to marry is 19 years. ⁷ In most countries, the legal age to consent for sex is 16 years, which is 2–4 years below the age of majority. Another important age in the legal context is termed “doli incapax” for specific crimes, which is established between the age of minority and the age of majority. ⁸ A child in this age threshold can be convicted of a crime but the evidence has to be strong that the child was aware, with intent, and that the act they carried out was not merely a naughty or mischievous act. The crime-specific age ranges from 12 to 18 years, but is commonly set at 16 years.

In many countries, the age for consent for sexual intercourse is 16 years. This age is important because it determines the appropriate sentencing of the suspects involved in sexual activities such as rape and child pornography. In Mexico the age is 12 years, 13 years in Spain and 14 years in Germany. In Great Britain, the legal age of statutory rape is 13 years. In many countries, the legal age to marry is 18 years, which is consistent with the age of majority. It is to be noted that the legal age to marry often differs with parental concern. For example, in the United States, the legal age to marry in most of the states is 18 years without parental consent, and with parental consent it varies between 15 and 18 years. Unlike other specified ages, which are universally not gender specific, the “age to marry” has been determined separately for females and males. In Algeria, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Singapore and Poland, the legal age for marriage is two years higher for males. The reason for this distinction is unclear, but it is believed that males are required to have a higher maturity and possibly financial status than females when entering into marriage. This is of particular importance in countries like India, Nepal and Bangladesh, where more than 50% of marriages involve child brides. ² In early 2013, India witnessed an act of gruesome criminal activity; a girl was brutally raped by six men in a moving bus in the capital city of Delhi. One of the suspect involved in this case claimed juvenile status, despite the fact that he could not provide documentary evidence of his age. The Ministry of Law and Justice of the Government of India responded to this issue and made amendments to provide death penalty for convicted criminals guilty of sexual crimes, and has further raised the age of consent for sexual intercourse to 18 years (The Criminal Law Amendment Act 2013, Section 375D). ⁹

Birth registration and immigration

South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa contribute 61% and 56% of unregistered births in the world, respectively, and between 2000 and 2010 only 3% of births were registered in Somalia. ² To date, more than 42.5 million people have migrated due to conflicts, wars and unstable economies. It has been projected that, by 2080, more than 250 million people are expected to migrate due to climate change-related issues; they are termed “environmental migrants”. ¹⁰ People seeking asylum use various transport means, with seaborne routes being very common. Due to geographical proximity, people from northern Africa mostly immigrate to countries on the southern coast of Europe such as Sicily, Malta, Italy and Spain. Long-distance travel is also undertaken utilizing multiple modes of transportation. Following a civil war in Sri Lanka, in 2012 alone, around 5200 Tamils attempted to enter Australia. In this process, many lost their lives due to lack of food, poor sanitation and natural calamities during sea travel. To tackle this situation, the Australian authorities set up offshore refugee detention camps on Christmas Island and, most recently, in the republic of Nauru. In addition, some migrants were transported to Papa New Guinea. As the majority of the asylum seekers are teenagers, age assessments are commonly conducted on these individuals because of the lack of birth certificates or suspicion of falsified identity documents. This has highlighted the need for a realistic age estimation procedure to ensure that juveniles receive appropriate age-related services. Age assessment is also useful in forensic human identification of multiple deceased individuals following earthquakes, typhoons, tsunami, landslides and aircraft accidents.

Age assessment practices

Age can be estimated by assessing the physical maturity of the human body. Skeletal and dental tissues are favored because age can be estimated with reasonable accuracy. Skeletal age assessment includes the analysis of specific bones of the individual including the clavicle, pelvis, cervical vertebrae and hand and wrist bones. All these structures can be utilized to estimate the chronological age of an individual. Among these, hand and wrist bones are commonly employed to estimate age, and several methods have been developed over many years. Greulich and Pyle presented atlas images of left-side hand and wrist of series of children at different age intervals. ¹¹ This method was later modified and adapted by Tanner and Whitehouse, which was then widely followed as TW2 and TW3 methods. The accuracy of hand-wrist radiographs in estimating age has been tested on various population groups; however, the results from these studies were inconsistent. A systematic review that evaluated the accuracy of these methods concluded that hand and wrist radiographs cannot provide accurate estimate of age of living individuals. ¹²

Similarly, Demirjian and co-workers developed a reference dataset from dental maturation of French-Canadian subjects that was utilized for dental age estimation in several population groups. ¹³ A recent systematic review on this method found that their dataset consistently overestimated the age of samples under investigation. Owing to varying results, the authors of this study concluded that this dataset should be applied only with considerable amount of caution. ¹⁴ Hence, it has been recognized that population-specific reference data is the major factor that determines the accuracy of any age assessment method. It is of interest that the updated reference standard from the most recent sample has been prepared from dental and skeletal maturity data for some population groups.^15,16 Any forensic age estimation method must adhere to four criteria: firstly, the work must be presented to the scientific community through peer-reviewed publication; secondly, it should contain well-defined methodology; thirdly, it should provide a sufficiently accurate result; and fourthly, it should comply with the principles of medical ethics and legal regulations. ¹⁷ A major drawback in using skeletal tissues is that their development may be altered by nutritional and environmental influences, leading to inaccurate assessment. As dental tissues are less affected by external influences than other body tissues, the accuracy of the estimated age is relatively higher than any other method. Hence, the possibility of using developing teeth is often the preferred form of age assessment. Several methods of age estimation are currently being practiced; however, only a few methods follow the above-mentioned criteria.^18–20

There is a continual increase of scientific data from the most recent studies, although no “universal protocol” on age assessment has been established. There is a difference in the practice of age assessment among different countries even within the European Union. ²¹ Based on their own laws, Spain, France, Hungary and Italy use bone examination based on the Greulich and Pyle method. A major drawback is that the reference standards used for this method are inappropriate, as they were derived from children who lived in the United States of America in the 1930s. ¹¹ Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Australia have recently acknowledged the drawbacks of skeletal age-assessment methods, and have discontinued the use of this method. The Dental Age Assessment method is widely followed in the United Kingdom, United States of America and other parts of the world. In addition to the existing controversies of age assessment, a more recent issue was raised against the use of radiographs for age estimation in the United Kingdom. A planned trial for age estimation using dental radiographs was apparently stopped due to ethical concerns. ²² The report briefed that obtaining radiographs for non-medical purposes was unethical and it cannot be employed for age estimation.

It is our opinion that there is no legality associated with exposing radiation for age estimation when considering the social relevance of this issue. Under the current guidelines, the use of radiographs for age estimation can be suitably justified. More recently, non-invasive techniques using magnetic resonance imaging of clavicle and pelvis have been employed for age estimation.^23,24

Conclusions

Poor birth registration practices and the increase in the number of juvenile crimes and human migrations have resulted in a high number of age disputes subsequently leading to case requiring the assessment of age. Despite improvements in scientific research methodology and data, no universal consensus has been achieved to identify the best method of age assessment. This situation exists in major receiving countries including the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Canada and Australia. Furthermore, the roles and responsibilities of individuals conducting this process, including social workers, psychologists, medical and dental practitioners, have not been clearly defined. Child rights have often been ignored during this process. There is currently an urgent need to acknowledge an appropriate method of age assessment based on the currently available scientific evidence.