“Sexual conduct involving persons below the domestically prescribed minimum age of consent to sex may be consensual in fact, if not in law.”

So says a March report released by the United Nations. In simpler terms, the U.N. is saying that minors can consent to sex, and that this is a human right.

This tweet by Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts gets even more to the point. (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s multimedia news organization.)

Truly disgusting stuff.

The ugly square, gray U.N. building next to the East River in New York City—which began construction in 1949—looks like a relic from a bygone era. 

The United Nations used to be at the forefront of the liberal imagination. In old movies, the U.N. was treated like a place where serious things happened. If aliens invade earth, the U.N. will come up with a plan to save us!

A few older liberals hold on to this fantasy, but for the most part the U.N. has just melded with the vast array of nongovernmental organizations and nonprofits foisting left-wing social values on various peoples while turning a blind eye to dictators and real tyranny.

Generations of failure to prevent wars, the inclusion of authoritarian regimes on the U.N. Human Rights Council, and various other follies have turned the U.N. into the punchline that it’s always been.

That doesn’t mean that the United Nations doesn’t still do genuinely awful things and demonstrate how terrible one-world governance would be under this noxious organization. Squabbling, wasting time, and generally being ignored might be the best aspects of the current U.N.

“Principle 16” of the global body’s March report, released for International Women’s Day, lays out the basis for what the U.N. considers “consensual sexual conduct.” It says:

The enforcement of criminal law should reflect the rights and capacity of persons under 18 years of age to make decisions about engaging in consensual sexual conduct and their right to be heard in matters concerning them. Pursuant to their evolving capacities and progressive autonomy, persons under 18 years of age should participate in decisions affecting them, with due regard to their age, maturity, and best interests, and with specific attention to non-discrimination guarantees.

Sorry, I have to say it. OK, groomer.

While not quite declaring outright that it’s a human right for adults to have sex with minors, the U.N. report suggests that a law preventing such a relationship is a violation of child’s right to have sex with whomever the child wants.

“The U.N. report echoes the thinking of groups like the North American Man-Boy Love Association, which condones pedophilia and works to abolish age-of-consent laws,” Adam Kredo wrote in the Washington Free Beacon. “While the report stops short of calling for the legalization of sex with minors, it maintains that those under 18 years of age have the mental capacity to willingly have sex with older individuals.”

The report is particularly disturbing given that the U.N. has been ensnared in several scandals involving child sex rings in recent years. In 2017, The Associated Press reported on such scandals in Haiti.

“The men who came from a far-away place and spoke a strange language offered the Haitian children cookies and other snacks. Sometimes they gave them a few dollars,” AP reported. “But the price was high: The Sri Lankan peacekeepers wanted sex from girls and boys as young as 12.”

It gets worse:

An Associated Press investigation of U.N. missions during the past 12 years found nearly 2,000 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers and other personnel around the world—signaling the crisis is much larger than previously known. More than 300 of the allegations involved children, the AP found, but only a fraction of the alleged perpetrators served jail time.

Is the United Nations now trying to justify evil behavior by its personnel?

The U.N. report includes other disturbing aspects besides the implications for children. It suggests that the criminalization of any sexual activity is a violation of human rights. In a preview of the report, the U.N. laments that “over 150 countries criminalize some aspect of sex work.”

Oh no!

Nothing says “progress” and defense of women like massively increasing and decriminalizing prostitution. Human rights leaders at the U.N. are extremely excited about how these initiatives decriminalizing sex work could wreck the patriarchy.

“Today is an opportunity for all of us to think about power and male-dominated systems,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said upon release of the report March 8, which is International Women’s Day.

Yes, perhaps we should.

Keep in mind, the United States currently pays for about 22% of the U.N. budget, thanks in large part to funding increases under President Joe Biden. 

Instead of international peace, the global organization has provided a megaphone for tyrants, soaked up endless taxpayer dollars, and swept serious scandals under the rug while promoting genuinely awful values around the world.

So much for the U.N.’s ushering in a brotherhood of man. Instead, it’s dedicated to helping adults prey on children under the guise of “human rights.”

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