At 17, Aline can ride a motorcycle alone, work part-time, and access contraception without her parents’ knowledge. Yet if she engages in a sexual relationship, the law considers it defilement. She cannot legally consent to sex, manage her personal data, or make other decisions that shape her life. In Rwanda, as in many countries, adolescents occupy a legal no-man’s land: old enough to bear adult consequences, yet too young to exercise full agency.

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Adolescence is meant to be a protected pause, a bridge between childhood dependence and adult responsibility. In practice, that pause is narrowing. Laws governing work, health, criminal responsibility, transport, and data protection draw their boundaries independently, often without regard for one another. The result is not protection, but inconsistence.

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Rwanda’s criminal law draws a clear line: sexual activity under 18 is defilement. Public-health legislation draws another, more pragmatic one. Recognising that adolescents engage in sexual activity despite legal prohibitions, it allows access to sexual and reproductive health services, including contraception, without parental consent, in order to reduce teenage pregnancies and related health risks.

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Other laws pull in different directions. The labour law sets 16 as the minimum age for employment, permits light work from age 13 through apprenticeship programmes, and prohibits hazardous labour under 18. Traffic regulations allow a 12-year-old to herd cattle, a 14-year-old to drive animal-drawn carts, a 15-year-old to ride a motorcycle alone, and a 17-year-old to carry passengers. Data protection law, meanwhile, prevents children under 16 from controlling their own personal information.

Each rule has internal logic. Together, they tell adolescents inconsistent stories about who they are allowed to be. Teenagers are treated as capable decision-makers in some domains and as legal dependents in others, often at the same moment.

Aline’s life reflects this tension. She contributes to her family’s income and can be held criminally accountable for certain offences. She can access contraception to avoid pregnancy, a decision strongly supported by medical evidence. Pregnancy rates rise sharply between ages 15 and 19, and children born to adolescent mothers face higher risks of illness, stunting, and early death. These are public-health realities, not moral abstractions.

Yet the same system that entrusts adolescents with these responsibilities criminalises the sexual activity that contraception presupposes. Young people and their families are left to navigate a legal landscape that expects maturity but withholds recognition.

These contradictions fall hardest on the vulnerable. Wealthier families can manage risk through private healthcare, legal counsel, or informal networks. Poor adolescents cannot. A teenager who seeks contraception to avoid pregnancy, or works to support her household, may be acting responsibly in one system while triggering suspicion or sanction in another. The law’s mixed signals do not cancel each other out; they compound.

Rwanda is not alone in confronting these tensions. Other countries have faced similar questions and responded with more coordinated approaches. In the United Kingdom, minors under 16 cannot legally consent to sex, but doctors may provide contraception if the adolescent demonstrates sufficient understanding of the risks and implications, a standard known as Gillick competence. Adults who exploit minors remain criminally liable. In Sweden, adolescents gain increasing autonomy over health and reproductive decisions as they mature, alongside strong protections against exploitation. In these systems, responsibility and protection are not at odds; they rise together.

Rwanda’s framework remains more fragmented. A 17-year-old can work, ride motorcycles on busy roads, and access contraception independently, but cannot consent to sex, control personal data, or meaningfully influence decisions that shape her future. Labour, health, criminal, transport, and data laws operate on different assumptions about adolescent capacity. The ambiguity spills outward, confusing parents, educators, health providers, and law-enforcement officials alike.

The consequences are not theoretical. One teenage girl interviewed by a local NGO avoided contraception because she feared being reported to her parents. She became pregnant. What followed was social stigma, interrupted schooling, and a legal process that offered complexity rather than clarity. Her experience underscores a central truth: when laws contradict one another, they do not protect adolescents, they expose them, even when young people are trying to act responsibly.

What is missing is not intent, but design. Rwanda, like many countries, needs a graduated legal framework that aligns responsibility, protection, and agency. Adolescents should encounter clear, consistent thresholds for decision-making across health, labour, and digital life. Safeguards against exploitation must remain firm, but they should not punish harm-avoidance or responsible behaviour. Professionals, doctors, teachers, and social workers, need coherent guidance that supports discretion rather than leaving them to interpret conflicting mandates.

Other countries demonstrate that such harmonisation is possible. Laws can protect young people without infantilising them, and grant agency without withdrawing safeguards. Clear pathways from dependence to autonomy reduce harm, improve health outcomes, and replace fear with guidance.

Rwanda now has a similar opportunity. By aligning laws across health, education, labour, justice, and data protection, the country can offer adolescents clarity instead of contradiction. Doing so would reduce confusion for families and institutions alike, while giving young people the confidence to make informed decisions without fear of legal or social penalty.

Adolescents are not legal abstractions. They are people navigating formative years under rules that shape their futures. Growing up is inevitable. Whether society makes that journey coherent, protective, and humane is a choice. Rwanda stands at a moment where alignment is possible, and where the cost of incoherence is already visible. Choosing harmonisation would not only strengthen adolescent protection; it would invest in a more resilient, healthier society for everyone.

Butera John R. Mugabe is a management consultant and strategist.