Iceland Minister for Children Quits After Admitting She Had 16-Year-Old’s Baby Decades Ago

Iceland’s Minister of Education and Children’s Affairs resigned from her position after admitting that she had a relationship with a 15-year-old boy that she mentored 30 years ago.

Ásthildur Lóa Þórsdóttir, 58, said in an interview with Icelandic media that she started the relationship when she was a 22-year-old counselor at a religious group.

Þórsdóttir then had his child when he was 16-years-old and she was 23, she said to the Icelandic outlet Vísir.

Eiríkur Ásmundsson, the minor who Þórsdóttir had a child with, has accused her of preventing him from interacting with their son, according to Vísir. 

The relationship was a secret, but Ásmundsson allegedly was present at their son’s birth and spent the first year of his life with them, according to Icelandic news agency RUV.

RUV reported seeing documents Ásmundsson submitted to Iceland’s justice ministry requesting to see his son, but he was denied access. He continued to make child support payments for 18 years, however.

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“It’s been 36 years, a lot of things change in that time and I would definitely have dealt with these issues differently today,” Þórsdóttir said in an interview with Vísir.

Þórsdóttir says this relationship was a mistake she made when she was young and she doesn’t want it to overshadow the issues she’s worked on for the ministry. She plans to remain in parliament, according to Vísir. 

According to the Icelandic outlets, a relative of Ásmundsson tried contacting the Icelandic prime minister about the relationship. That’s when she decided to resign from her position. 

In Iceland, it is illegal to have sex with a person under the age of 18 if you are their teacher or mentor. Conviction is punishable by up to three years in jail, according to the Icelandic General Penal Code. 

“We know what the news is like today and we know that issues like this, if I remained minister, would be brought up again and again and again and there would never really be any peace in the government, and not even in the issues that I am passionate about in the Ministry of Education,” Þórsdóttir said to the Icelandic outlets.

If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.