There are similar policies all over the place. I'm sure bigD has talked about it in Germany, and the laws in Japan are pretty complex - although the age of consent is 13, in practice their indecency laws make it illegal until much older.

I think it's stupid to criminalise young people who choose to experiment, but most would agree that a 45 year old (or however old the defendant was) really shouldn't be messing with middle-school girls. Especially from a position of perceived authority.