She's 16. IMO she's hardly a child and is a young adult. At 16 you can have sex, join the military, have a job, marry and so on. She's a young adult.
To be fair, doesn’t that technically depend on the specific laws pertaining to the region?
I mean sure, down under in the land of beer, she could hold down a job (albeit with rather strict rules about her workable hours and workload, since she is a minor under the law.)
I don’t think she can join the military here but she can join the young cadets or whatever youth version is available. She can’t legally marry without parental consent here. Legal consent for sex being as low as 16 is more about pragmatism to me. Like why would you demonise a teenager for being hormonal?
A 16 year old to me is an adolescent. Too young to be trusted to drink or smoke, but old enough to at least learn how to control a car. So yeah, to me she’s a kid.
But her age has no bearing on the merit of her arguments. And a teacher joking about sniping a minor, during class time (I’m sure many a joke is uttered in the pub after hours) is not particularly an adult or reasonable response. It’s unprofessional at best.
As an aside, I just have to ask, where do you live that allows a 16 year old to get married? I mean without being emancipated or the parents being religiously err “traditional.”