No one under the age of 16 will be allowed to say "yes' to sex. And if they do, their bedmate could be charged with rape. This is if proposed last-minute changes to amendments to the Sexual Offences Act are passed.The amendments are a result of a Constitutional Court order to parliament in 2013 to modify the legislation after it had ruled in two cases that sections 15 and 16 of the act, which made consensual sexual acts between children aged 12 to 16 a crime, were unconstitutional.The latest proposals from state law advisers scrap sections 15 and 16 entirely and make it impossible for anyone younger than 16 to consent to sex.They also eliminate the crimes of statutory rape and statutory sexual assault, which currently apply to sexual acts with a consenting child younger than 16.Justice Department spokesman Mthunzi Mhaga said yesterday the new proposals flowed from discussions on the first few days of the public hearings into the proposed amendments held by the portfolio committee on justice and correctional services.But the director of Resources Aimed at the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, Christina Nomdo, said the new proposals would make some children guilty of rape for having consensual sex. "We are deeply concerned that many people who are 16 or 17 will now face convictions for rape and sexual assault for consensual sexual acts with other children," she said.Rape is a more serious offence with more serious consequences than statutory rape. The sentence for statutory rape is at the discretion of the court, while the prescribed minimum sentence for rape of someone younger than 16 is life imprisonment. A court can impose a lighter sentence but only if there are "substantial and compelling circumstances"."The law advisers' proposals . open up a proverbial can of worms," said Nomdo in court papers. "Many risks such as arrest, pre-trial detention in prison, refusal of bail and prison sentences would suddenly loom large in cases that have previously been treated as statutory rape, where those risks do not arise," she said.The concerns of Rapcan and other children's rights lobby groups are detailed in a response to an application that the acting National Assembly Speaker, Lechesa Tsenoli, brought in the Constitutional Court last week. Tsenoli asked for an extension of the deadline to amend the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act. Parliament was given until this month to remedy the defects.But parliament has asked for an extension until August because the required public-participation process was more extensive than expected. The portfolio committee received more than 900 submissions on the amendment bill and heard submissions over four days last month.The court will next month hear arguments on whether a further extension should be granted. In the meantime, it has granted a temporary extension until May.Rapcan and the Teddy Bear Clinic for Abused Children agreed to the extension but expressed concern that the new proposals might "derail" the passing of the law.Shaheda Omar, director of the Teddy Bear Clinic for Abused Children, said: "Children's rights are being compromised once again ... we are failing children; this is not protecting them."Steven Swart, ACDP MP and member of the portfolio committee, said the new proposals were "a radical take, but we are also aware of the high rates of sexual offences ... There are many cases of people who say that the sex was consensual [when it was not]."He said the committee would also have to consider the "unintended consequences" of the proposals.The controversy around sections 15 and 16 came to the fore when pupils filmed having sex at Jules High School in Johannesburg in 2010 were charged with statutory rape.The girl initially claimed to have been drugged but subsequently admitted to having agreed to have sex with the boys. She later killed herself...