Zee
News: New Delhi: Monday, October 29, 2012.
The Delhi
High Court has asked the central and Delhi governments to apprise it on the
steps taken for framing guidelines to prevent sexual abuse of children in
schools and educational institutions.
Issuing
notice, a division bench of Chief Justice D. Murugesan and Justice Rajiv Sahai
Endlaw sought a response by Dec 5 from the union ministry of women and child
development and the Sheila Diskhit-led Delhi government on a plea filed by an
NGO seeking guidelines for prevention of sexual abuse of children.
The HAQ
Centre for Child Rights filed a public interest litigation (PIL) pointing out
that the Juvenile Justice Act Rules make it mandatory for the authorities to
frame the guidelines, but neither the central or Delhi governments had done so.
Seeking a direction
to government to issue the guidelines, petition said: "Every person,
school or such other educational institutions should abide by guidelines issued
by central government and state government."
"However,
the fact remains that till date, neither the central government nor the
government of Delhi have issued any such guidelines for prevention of sexual
abuse of children."
The plea
further stated that the NGO, on several occasions, had advocated with both the
governments about the need to frame and issue the guidelines.
Advocate
Anant Asthana, who filed the petition, said: "Despite increasing incidents
of sexual abuse of children in institutions being reported and despite there
being an urgent need for such guidelines for schools, educational institutions,
government have not issued these guidelines as mandated by law. Now with no
guidelines, action is taken against the accused after the incident
happened."
He said after
formulation of uniform guidelines, all schools and educational institutions
would have to follow the law.
"Now,
there is no lawful mechanism to protect children from sexual abuse in schools
and educational institutions, but after the formulation of these guidelines,
monitoring of such cases will increase."
He said that
the guidelines would make possible the early detection of child abuses cases.
"The
guidelines would increase the monitoring of sexual abuse cases. We feel the
incidents would also decreas if guidelines are framed. The schools and
educational institutions would be made answerable if they fail to take any
action on the issue," Asthana said.
The petition
has been filed on the basis of an RTI reply provided by the Delhi government.
NGO Pratidhi had filed a RTI query seeking information from the Delhi
government on the status of the guidelines as per Rule 31 of the Delhi Juvenile
Justice Rules, 2009, which made it mandatory to protect children from sexual
abuse.
Although
there is no data available on sexaul abuse in educational institutions, many
such incidents have come to light in the national capital that have shocked the
nation.
In September
alone, two cases of sexual abuse came to light - both involving schoolbus
drivers and minors.
In the first
incident, a three-year-old boy was allegedly sodomised by his schoolbus driver
and cleaner, while in second incident a 7-year-old girl accused her bus driver
and cleaner of trying to rape her.
In another
incident in July, a schoolteacher at Hauz Khas was arrested for raping a
student. The teacher was also blackmailing the victim, threatening to make
public her obscene photographs.
Such cases
have also been reported from other cities and towns and many NGOs want the
government to frame guidelines that could save students from sexual attacks by
their own teachers or professors.