As per the data maintained by the National Crime Records Bureau in its publication “Crime in India, 2012”, the number of cases of crime against children, which includes violence, sexual violence and abuse has increased from 26,694 in 2010 to 38,172 in 2012.
The State/UT wise details of crimes against children are given below.
The reasons for the rising cases of violence against children include: discrimination on the basis of gender, class, caste and religion, making children vulnerable to abuse and violence and low awareness and knowledge on legal provisions for the protection of children.
This Ministry of Women and Child Development has recently conducted five regional conferences to spread awareness on the provisions of the special law – Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. This law provides protection to all children under the age of 18 years from the offences of sexual assault, sexual harassment and pornography.
The regional conferences covered all the State and UTs and included officers from the Department of Women and Child Development, Department of Social Justice and Empowerment, Department of Education (Elementary and Secondary Education), Department of Health, State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, State Police Academy, Defense Academy, Department of Legislative Affairs , Judiciary Academy, State Legal Service Authority, State Administrative Training Institutes, Office of Public Prosecutor and some members of Child Welfare Committees as nominated by the respective State Government.
As the State Governments and other stakeholders have a key role in the effective implementation of the Act, the States were advised to take forward this initiative and undertake more measures to spread awareness on the provisions of the Act.
Several programmes and schemes are being implemented by the Government to address child abuse. These include:
- the Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) for children in difficult circumstances and vulnerable children;
- the 24 hour child help line –1098 – run by Childline;
- a comprehensive scheme for prevention of trafficking and rescue, rehabilitation, re-integration and repatriation of victims of trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation- “Ujjawala”;
- a web-based Child Adoption Resource Information and Guidance System (CARINGS) to make the process of adoption more transparent; and
- -guidelines for in-country and inter-country adoption to regulate and monitor all adoption programmes.
This was stated by Smt. Krishna Tirath, Minister for Women and Child Development, in a written reply to theLok Sabha today.
