Even if the legal age of sexual consent was lowered, it did not mean that maturity would be speeded up, clinical psychologist MaryAnne Cassar told House Social Affairs Committee.

The age of consent is currently 18. Lowering it would increase the pressure to experiment, Dr Cassar said, recommending it be kept as it is to help adolescents develop and mature.

She said she had reservations on this matter. In her experience, while adolescents may be physically and sexually mature, the emotional maturity often lagged behind. Adolescents and young adults were given private time but this privacy was infringed if the clinician felt that the young patient was likely to come to harm.

Dr Cassar said that reducing the age of consent may burden the young with more responsibility than they can bear at that age.

This was compounded by the fact that at these ages they were vulnerable to peer pressure and felt freer to speak to friends and strangers than to family.

While bodies may be mature, emotions and maturity may not be

Dolores Gauci, the head of Development Strategy in the Education Department, said that consent implied knowing the consequences of that consent.

“While bodies may be mature, emotions and maturity may not be,” Ms Gauci said.

She said this was a very complex issue and also affected the cultural knit of society.

The law was there to protect children and this aspect of the law was very important and needed to be upheld.

Increased promiscuity raised the need for protection rather than the opposite, as vulnerability increased, said Ms Gauci.

She too expressed reservations on the lowering of the age of consent.

And the latest witnesses before the committee are not the only ones to have done so.

In a previous session, Children’s Commissioner Helen D’Amato said her office wanted to see further research and discussion about the issue before the step was taken.