LONDON (AP) — Iceland’s president on Sunday accepted the resignation of the North Atlantic island nation’s children’s minister, who quit the government over a relationship she had with a teenager more than three decades ago.
Ásthildur Lóa Thórsdóttir stepped down after national broadcaster RUV revealed last week that she had a child 35 years ago when she was 23 and the baby’s father was 16. RUV said the relationship began after the pair met at a church youth group when the teen was 15.
Iceland ’s age of sexual consent is 15, but it is an offense for an adult to have sex with a teenager they teach, employ or mentor.
Thórsdóttir confirmed the relationship in a statement, saying she was not a leader of the church group, just a member, and that “relationships between people of that age were not at all uncommon, even if they were not desirable.”
She said the relationship lasted only a few weeks, though the father was present at the child’s birth.
RUV reported that the father sought access to the couple’s son through the government and church, but was granted only occasional visits, though he paid child support for 18 years.
Thórsdóttir, who said the father had made little attempt to establish a relationship with his son, officially stepped down at a meeting Sunday of the State Council, involving government ministers and President Halla Tómasdóttir.
Although she has left the government, she remains a lawmaker for the People’s Party, which is part of a coalition government led by Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir of the Social Democratic Alliance.
Iceland is a volcanic island nation tucked below the Arctic Circle with a population of less than 400,000. Its parliament, founded in 930 by Viking settlers, is arguably the world’s oldest legislature.
