Kissing a minor: what Dutch criminal law says

Kissing a minor is not a separate offence in Dutch criminal law, but it is punishable as soon as the kiss qualifies as a sexual act with a child under the age of sixteen. Since 1 July 2024 these cases are governed by the Wet seksuele misdrijven (Sexual Offences Act), which rewrote Title XIV of the Wetboek van Strafrecht (Dutch Criminal Code). Below sixteen a child cannot give legally valid consent, so the decisive question is not whether the child agreed but whether the conduct had a sexual character. Between sixteen and eighteen the same conduct is punishable where the older party exploits a relationship of authority, dependence or vulnerability.

What changed on 1 July 2024

The Wet seksuele misdrijven came into force on 1 July 2024. It renamed Title XIV of the Criminal Code from offences against public morals to seksuele misdrijven (sexual offences) and rebuilt the whole title around consent rather than around force. Under the previous regime the prosecution generally had to establish coercion, violence or the threat of violence. Under the current regime it is enough that the accused knew, or had serious reason to suspect, that the other person did not want the sexual contact.

That produces three gradations for both aanranding (sexual assault) and verkrachting (rape). The lightest is the culpable variant, where the accused should have realised that the other person did not want it. The middle variant requires intent, including conditional intent. The heaviest is the qualified variant, in which force, violence or the threat of violence was used. Each step upwards raises the statutory maximum, and each step is raised again when the victim is a child.

The Act also introduced separate offences for the sexual approach of children, covering sexually explicit communication with a child under sixteen, exposing such a child to sexual conduct or imagery, and proposing a meeting with a sexual purpose. Public sexual harassment became a criminal offence in its own right. None of this has retroactive effect: conduct that took place before 1 July 2024 is still judged under the provisions that applied at the time, which is why older sources and older article numbers remain in circulation and are easily misread.

The age limits that decide the case

Dutch law works with three age thresholds: twelve, sixteen and eighteen. The general age of sexual consent is sixteen. A sexual act with a person younger than sixteen is a criminal offence irrespective of what the child said or did, because the law does not recognise consent given below that age.

For children aged twelve to sixteen the Criminal Code contains dedicated provisions on sexual assault and rape, articles 247 and 248 Sr. For children under twelve the corresponding provisions are articles 249 and 250 Sr, and the penalties are the highest in the whole title. The separate offences on the sexual approach of children, including sexual communication and grooming, are set out in article 251 Sr and likewise use sixteen as the cut-off point.

Sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds occupy an intermediate position. They can in principle consent, and a relationship between two people of that age is not a criminal matter. The Criminal Code nevertheless contains aggravated variants for victims in this age group where the older party abuses authority, trust, dependence or a demonstrable vulnerability, and where the minor is drawn into paid or otherwise exploitative sexual conduct. In those circumstances the fact that the minor said yes carries no weight.

The thresholds and the provisions that go with them can be summarised as follows.

The age of the older party is not an element of the offence below sixteen. Two fourteen-year-olds who kiss each other are, in strict legal terms, both engaging in conduct that the statute covers. Whether the criminal law is actually brought to bear on that situation is a separate question, decided by the Public Prosecution Service rather than by the wording of the article, and it is dealt with below.

When does a kiss count as a sexual act

The Criminal Code does not list which physical acts are sexual. It uses the open term seksuele handeling (sexual act), and the court decides whether the conduct fell within it. That assessment is objective: the judge looks at the nature of the contact, the part of the body involved, its duration and intensity, and the circumstances in which it occurred, measured against what is socially normal between the persons concerned. A conventional greeting or a parental gesture of affection lacks a sexual character and therefore falls outside the provision altogether.

Intent is a separate element and is assessed after that. A kiss that is objectively sexual in character can still lead to acquittal if the required intent or culpability is absent, and conversely a stated innocent motive does not neutralise conduct that was plainly sexual. The age of the child is treated differently again. It is an objectified element, which means the prosecution does not have to prove that the accused knew or intended the age of the other person. Only a mistake about age that is genuinely excusable can, in exceptional cases, lead to acquittal, and the threshold for that defence is high.

The vocabulary matters here, because two terms are regularly confused in English-language material. Aanranding covers sexual acts without penetration of the body; verkrachting requires penetration, however slight. Each exists in a culpable, an intentional and a qualified form, and each has its own child-specific provisions. The older term ontuchtige handeling, which dominated the case law until 1 July 2024, has been replaced by seksuele handeling. Judgments from before that date still matter, because the courts continue to draw on them when assessing whether conduct had a sexual character.

Why consent does not help below sixteen

The consent-based approach of the Wet seksuele misdrijven applies to people of sixteen and over. Below that age the legislator has made a categorical choice: a child cannot validly consent to sexual contact, and evidence that the child took the initiative, wanted the contact or later described it as voluntary does not remove the criminal character of the act. The protection is not at the disposal of the person it protects.

Dutch law contains no statutory close-in-age exemption. Constructions of that kind exist in a number of foreign systems, but they have no counterpart in the Criminal Code, and it is a persistent error in English-language material about the Netherlands to present them as Dutch law. What Dutch law does have is the opportuniteitsbeginsel, the principle that the Public Prosecution Service is never obliged to prosecute. The Aanwijzing seksuele misdrijven, the prosecution guideline in force since 2024, sets out how that discretion is exercised, and it directs prosecutors to distinguish between exploitation on the one hand and sexual conduct between minors of comparable age and position on the other.

That distinction operates at the level of the prosecution decision, not at the level of the offence description. It is discretion, not a right, and it disappears entirely where there is a substantial difference in age or maturity, any form of pressure, payment, an image or recording, or a relationship in which one person has influence over the other.

Positions of trust, authority and dependence

The Criminal Code treats sexual contact within a relationship of authority or dependence as a separate and heavier wrong. Teachers, carers, sports coaches, youth workers, therapists, foster parents and stepparents all occupy positions in which the law regards genuine consent as unattainable, and in which conduct that would otherwise be a matter of private life becomes a criminal offence. This is also the route by which sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds are protected: for them, the presence of a dependency relationship is what makes the act punishable.

Educational institutions carry an additional statutory duty that is easily overlooked. Where a staff member is suspected of a sexual offence against a pupil, school staff must report this internally, the board must consult the confidential inspector of the Inspectorate of Education, and where a reasonable suspicion exists the board must report the matter to the police. The board has no discretion to settle such a case internally, and failing to follow the procedure is itself a serious breach of duty.

Alongside the criminal consequences, an allegation in this category tends to trigger a parallel track: suspension or dismissal, professional disciplinary proceedings for regulated occupations, and the refusal of a Verklaring Omtrent het Gedrag (certificate of conduct) for work with minors. These tracks run on their own timetables and their own standards of proof, and an acquittal in the criminal case does not automatically resolve them.

Reporting, prosecution and the role of article 167a Sv

Sexual offences against children are prosecuted ex officio. They are not klachtdelicten (complaint offences): the Public Prosecution Service does not need a formal complaint from the child or the parents in order to act, and once a report reaches the police it cannot simply be withdrawn. This is the point on which foreign material about Dutch law most often goes wrong. A complaint requirement does still exist elsewhere in the Criminal Code, for instance for stalking under article 285b Sr, but not for the sexual offences discussed here.

What the law does require is that the child is heard. Article 167a of the Wetboek van Strafvordering (Code of Criminal Procedure) obliges the prosecutor, in sexual offence cases involving a minor who has reached the age of twelve, to give that minor the opportunity to make their view on the offence known before the decision on prosecution is taken. The prosecutor must take that view into account. It is not a veto: the Public Prosecution Service can prosecute against the wishes of the minor, and can also decide not to prosecute even though the minor wants it to.

Reports are handled by the specialist vice teams (zedenteams) of the police. In practice a report is preceded by an informative conversation in which the police explain what a report involves and what happens afterwards, so that the decision to report is made with full information. Interviews with young children are conducted in a specially equipped studio by trained officers and are recorded.

Limitation periods are generous by design. For the most serious sexual offences, including rape and the sexual abuse of a young child, prosecution is not subject to any limitation period at all. For the remaining sexual offences committed against a minor, article 71 Sr provides that the period does not begin to run on the day of the act but on the day the victim turns eighteen, so that the decision to report can be taken in adulthood.

How these cases are proved

Cases in this area often come down to two accounts of the same event, and Dutch evidence law sets a specific limit on that. Under article 342 of the Code of Criminal Procedure a conviction cannot rest on the statement of a single witness alone. The statement of the complainant must therefore be supported by other evidence, which need not itself establish the offence but must give the account independent corroboration.

In practice that supporting evidence comes from messages, images and location data on telephones, from statements by people to whom the child spoke at the time, from what the accused said in interview, and occasionally from forensic or medical findings. The reliability of a statement can itself become the central issue, and both the defence and the prosecution can ask for a study of how a statement was obtained, particularly where the child is young or has been interviewed more than once. Sexual imagery deserves separate mention: making, sending, possessing or viewing sexual images of a person under eighteen is a criminal offence in its own right, including where the persons depicted are minors themselves and the images were exchanged voluntarily.

The role of the Raad voor de Kinderbescherming

The Raad voor de Kinderbescherming (Child Care and Protection Board) has two distinct functions in these cases, and they are frequently confused. Where the suspect is a minor, the Raad advises the Public Prosecution Service and the juvenile court on the personal circumstances of the young person and on the sanction or intervention that fits. That advice is prepared early, often while the case is still with the prosecutor, and it carries real weight in a juvenile case.

Where the safety of a child is in question, the Raad has a different role. Veilig Thuis, the advice and reporting centre for domestic violence and child abuse, or the Public Prosecution Service may ask the Raad to investigate whether a child protection measure is needed. If the investigation shows that the development of the child is seriously threatened, the Raad applies to the kinderrechter (juvenile judge). The judge can impose an ondertoezichtstelling under article 1:255 of the Burgerlijk Wetboek, place the child outside the home, or in the gravest cases terminate parental authority under article 1:266 BW.

These civil proceedings run alongside the criminal case and follow their own standard. A criminal acquittal does not end a protection measure, and a decision not to prosecute does not mean the Raad will close its file. Parents therefore regularly face two processes at once, with different parties, different timetables and different rules on access to the file.

Penalties and the consequences that follow a conviction

The statutory maxima rise with the seriousness of the conduct and fall in steps according to the age of the child. For intentional sexual assault the maximum is six years for a victim of sixteen or older, eight years where the victim is between twelve and sixteen, and ten years where the victim is under twelve. For intentional rape the corresponding maxima are nine, twelve and fifteen years. The qualified variants, in which force, violence or the threat of violence was used, are punished considerably more heavily still, and the culpable variants considerably less.

These are ceilings, not tariffs. What a court actually imposes depends on the seriousness of the conduct, the age difference, the duration, the presence of a dependency relationship, the impact on the victim and the personal circumstances of the accused. In juvenile criminal law the sanctions and the maxima are different again, and the emphasis lies on interventions rather than on punishment.

The sentence is rarely the whole of the consequence. A conviction is entered in the judicial documentation register, and it is worth understanding what a criminal record is before assuming that a conditional sentence is a light outcome. A conviction in this category will normally block a Verklaring Omtrent het Gedrag for any work involving minors, for many years. The court can impose a contact ban or an area ban, and in serious cases a disqualification from a profession. Victims can join the criminal proceedings as an injured party and claim compensation, which the court can award together with the sentence and which the state then collects. How the case reaches that stage is explained in our article on the summons and the hearing in a Dutch criminal case.

Two further consequences are worth naming because they surprise people. A conviction for a sexual offence against a minor can be reported to the authorities of another EU member state, which affects work with children abroad. And where the accused holds parental authority over the child, the criminal case will almost always be accompanied by civil proceedings about contact and residence, decided by a different judge on a different standard.

What to do if you are questioned or accused

Anyone summoned for questioning in a case of this kind is entitled to consult a lawyer before the first police interview and to have a lawyer present during it, and that entitlement applies from the very first interview. The right to remain silent applies throughout. Statements made in an attempt to explain the situation informally are recorded and used, and in an area where the assessment turns on nuance, an unassisted account is a poor starting point.

Do not approach the other party, their family or any potential witness, directly or through intermediaries. Influencing a person who is to make a statement is itself a criminal offence and, quite apart from that, it is the single most reliable way to convert a case that might have ended in a dismissal into a prosecution. If a contact ban has been imposed as a condition, breaching it will normally lead to detention.

For parents and for young people who have experienced sexual contact they did not want, the route runs through the police vice team, and Slachtofferhulp Nederland provides support during it; the position of the complainant in the proceedings that follow is set out in our article on victims rights in Dutch criminal proceedings. An informative conversation with the police carries no obligation to report. Where the safety of a child at home is in question, Veilig Thuis can be approached separately from the criminal process.

Law and More advises both suspects and victims in criminal cases involving sexual offences, and in the child protection proceedings that often accompany them. Our criminal lawyers assess the file, the evidence and the position under the Wet seksuele misdrijven, and act at the police interview, in the prosecution phase and at trial. If you have been summoned for questioning, or if you are considering a report, contact us before you speak to anyone else about the case.

Legal boundaries around contact with minors

Looking for something else? Our index of Dutch criminal law guides lists everything we have written on this subject, ordered by topic.