Hindustan Times: Gurgaon:
Thursday, June 27, 2013.
The Gurgaon
district administration does not have any guidelines in place to deal with
child abuse cases.
The shocking
revelation was made in response to a Right to Information (RTI) application
filed by activist Aseem Takyar.
Through the
application filed on January 7, Takyar sought to know if the state directorate
of school education had been taking action to safeguard children from the
heinous crime of sexual abuse. In reply to the plea, the state public
information officer replied, “No guidelines have been received from NCERT or
the central government with reference to Protection of Children from Sexual
Offences Bill, 2011.”
This implies
that the entire country does not have a special set of laws that protect
children from abuse. Due to the absence of a defining law for the offence, the
Gurgaon police have not been able to keep a record of the number of child abuse
cases in the district.
According to
lawyers in Gurgaon, there is a dire need for a policy as such offences are
being widely reported since the December 16 gang-rape case in Delhi. “After the
Delhi gang-rape, attitudes have changed, sensitivity has increased and people
have become aware of the offence,” said Anju Rawat Negi, criminal and
matrimonial lawyer. Negi, who is associated with NGO Farishte that fights cases
of child abuse for free, attends to nearly three to four such cases every
month.
Child abuse
comprises emotional, physical and mental torture, and maltreatment of the
child. School counsellors in the city opine that mental and emotional torture
cannot be accounted for as it is very difficult to prove these. But even they
have felt the need for a set of guidelines that checks child sexual abuse.
“Sexual
offences against children cannot be seen with the same parameter used for
adults. It is social media which has acted as a catalyst in such crimes as
children don’t know how much information to reveal online,” said Surbhi Talwar,
counsellor, Delhi Public School, Sushant Lok.
Lawyers have
also observed a distinct trend with regard to child abuse in Gurgaon. It is
seen that most of the accused are middle-aged migrant men who live alone here.
“In most of these cases, the accused are migrant labourers, who lure the children
with chocolate and food. But, children are more prone to molestation than rape.
And, unfortunately, only 30% of the molestation cases are reported,” said Negi.
Experts also
feel there is lack of knowledge about the use of Section 377 of the IPC, the section
that applies to child abuse.
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