The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012- Objectives of the Act and the Reasons for its Limitations

RELEVANT for UPSC CSE MAINS GENERAL STUDIES PAPER 1, 2 & 4.

In 2012, the parliament passed the Protection of Children against Sexual Offences Act, (POCSO). Until then provisions of IPC were used to deal with sexual offences against children and the law did not make a distinction between an adult and a child.

The objectives of the act:

• It aims to offer protections to children (individuals below the age of 18) from sexual violence, namely sexual assault, sexual harassment and the inclusion of children in pornography.
• It provides a comprehensive legislation to safeguard the interest of a child at every stage – reporting, recording of evidence, investigation and trial of offences.
• It aims at providing relief and rehabilitation as soon as the complaint is made to the Special Juvenile Police Unit.
• It stipulates special courts for the arraignment of sexual crimes committed against children with speedy disposal of cases.
  It fulfills the mandatory obligations of India as a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of The Child.

LIMITATIONS :

• Police forces are inept in handling the delicacies involved in such offenses, due to lack of proper training.
• POCSO repeatedly mandates the necessity of extensive training programs for the police and other legal authorities, handling child sex abuse cases, such programs are almost non –existent.
• Lack of awareness about the act as most child abuse cases are not booked under POCSO.
• Due to lack of fund, poor infrastructure of the psychosocial services in our country, the victim and his/her family receives very little from the government sponsored services.
• Lack of efforts on the part of state governments to furnish explicit codes and principles that need to be strictly adhered to by the medical and healthcare professionals in child sex abuse cases.

In a country where 40% of the population falls below the age bracket of 18 years and about 53% children have been a subject to some form of sexual abuse, the proper implementation of POCSO in our country is a necessity of yesterday.

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