Minister for Children Quits Amid News She Had a Baby With Teen

Government of Iceland/Ministry of Education and ChildrenIceland’s Minister of Children Affairs, Ásthildur Lóa Thórsdóttir, resigned abruptly after revealing that she had a baby with a 16-year-old boy nearly three decades ago when she was 22-years-old. The 58-year-old politician divulged her relationship started when she was a counselor at the church group that the boy, Eirík Ásmundsson, attended. She later gave birth to his child when he was 16-years-old and she was 23. “It’s been 36 years, a lot of things change in that time and I would definitely have dealt with these issues differently today,” Thórsdóttir told an Icelandic outlet RUV. Although their relationship was a secret, she noted that Ásmundsson was present at his child’s birth and spent the first year with him. Allegedly, he even paid child support for the next 18 years—despite Thórsdóttir restricting his access to their child after she met and married her now husband. A relative of Ásmundsson attempted to contact the Icelandic prime minister twice last week regarding the relationship.

In Iceland, the age of consent is 15, but it is illegal for authority figures to engage in sex with those under 18, and it is punishable by up to three years.Read it at RUVRead more at The Daily Beast.