The government has agreed to the parliamentary standing committee's recommendation not to treat 16 years as the age of consent for girls and not to classify sexual acts with children aged 16 to 18 years as consensual but to treat them as offence.

Conceding the unanimous recommendation of the parliamentary panel, minister for women and child development Krishna Tirath said everyone under the age of 18 would be treated as a child under a landmark bill that will be brought in the Rajya Sabha in March to protect children from sexual assault and pornography.

The panel had rejected the government's stand that children now acquire sexual awareness at an early age and hence,the age of consent should not be kept at 18. It insisted that the law defines everyone up to the age of 18 years as children and the age of consent clause would tehrefore be contentious if the it was kept at 16 years.

"By having the element of consent, the focus will be on the victims, leading to his or her re-victimisation. Children cannot be exposed to lengthy cross examination on issues of consent," the committee had said in its report tabled in parliament last month.

Tirath also indicated that the government may agree with the committee's another recommendation to include the domestic servants under the protection of women against sexual harassment at workplace bill which was introduced last year.

The national commission for women is also insisting on inclusion of domestic servants under the law, while the government had earlier pleaded that it is difficult to define the households as workplace. Sonia Gandhi-led national advisory council (NAC) has also endorsed the parliamentary panel's insistence to cover the domestic servants as have the governments of Gujarat and Punjab.

The government tried to wriggle out during submissions before the parliamentary panel that inclusion of the domestic servants will impinge upon the privacy of those engaging them. The panel, however, rejected the argument as unfounded, pointing out that the protection of women from domestic violence act enacted in 2005 had shown that the legal scrutiny can be offered in homes.