{"id":34812,"date":"2022-11-18T01:43:34","date_gmt":"2022-11-17T20:13:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=34812"},"modified":"2025-04-20T17:30:24","modified_gmt":"2025-04-20T12:00:24","slug":"14-conviction-in-pocso-in-a-fourth-of-cases-accused-known-to-victims-says-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/14-conviction-in-pocso-in-a-fourth-of-cases-accused-known-to-victims-says-study\/","title":{"rendered":"14% Conviction in POCSO; In a Fourth of Cases, Accused Known to Victims, Says Study"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>About POCSO Act<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>News Summary<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why In News?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>According to a think-tank examination of cases in e-Courts across the country under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses (POCSO) Act of 2012, 43.44% of trials result in acquittals and only 14.03% result in convictions.<\/li>\n<li>Furthermore, the accused were known to the victims in 22.9%, which is about fourth of the 138 judgments examined in detail.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>About:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>It is the\u00a0<strong>first comprehensive law<\/strong>\u00a0in the country dealing specifically with sexual abuse of children, enacted in 2012 and is administered by the Ministry of Women and Child Development.<\/li>\n<li>It was intended to protect children from sexual assault, sexual harassment and pornographic violations, as well as to establish Special Courts for such trials.<\/li>\n<li>In 2019, the Act was amended to strengthen the penalties for specified offences in order to deter abusers and promote a dignified upbringing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Key provisions:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Gender-neutral legislation:<\/strong>\u00a0The Act defines a child as &#8220;any person&#8221; under the age of 18.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Non-reporting is a crime:\u00a0<\/strong>Any person in charge of an institution (excluding children) who fails to report the commission of a sexual offense involving a subordinate faces punishment.<\/li>\n<li><strong>No time limit for reporting abuse:\u00a0<\/strong>A victim may report an offence at any time, even years after the abuse has occurred.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Keeping victim\u2019s identity confidential:\u00a0<\/strong>The Act forbids the disclosure of the victim&#8217;s identity in any form of media unless authorised by the special courts established by the Act.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Concerns:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Such abuse is on the rise:<\/strong>\u00a0Particularly since the Covid-19 outbreak, when new forms of cybercrime have emerged.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Lack of awareness or knowledge:\u00a0<\/strong>On the part of minor girls, boys, parents and society as a whole.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>News Summary:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/media\/editor_images\/2022\/11\/18\/12\/40\/13\/63772fd545f9d205ae289a22_OI.PNG\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Findings of the analysis:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The analysis, titled &#8220;<strong>A Decade of Pocso<\/strong>,&#8221; was conducted by the\u00a0<u>Justice, Access, and Lowering Delays in India (JALDI) Initiative at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy<\/u>\u00a0in partnership with the World Bank&#8217;s Data Evidence for Justice Reform (DE JURE) initiative.<\/li>\n<li>In addition, according to data provided by the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) in 2021, the accused in 96% of POCSO cases was a person known to the victim.<\/li>\n<li>Acquittals were 7 times more common in Andhra Pradesh than convictions, and 5 times more common in West Bengal.<\/li>\n<li><strong>In Kerala<\/strong>, however, the difference between acquittal and conviction is not as large.<\/li>\n<li>In 2018,\u00a0<strong>Delhi had the highest number of POCSO trials<\/strong>, with 13.54 cases per 100,000 people.<\/li>\n<li><strong>UP has the biggest number of cases pending<\/strong>, accounting for more than three-fourths (77.77%) of all lawsuits filed between November 2012 and February 2021.<\/li>\n<li>One of the key causes for the high level of pending cases is the\u00a0<strong>police&#8217;s slow pace of investigation and the delay in depositing sample<\/strong>s with the Forensic Science Laboratories.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Way ahead:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Educating children about the legislation and its provisions.<\/li>\n<li>Training and sensitisation programs.<\/li>\n<li>Implementation of the Fast Track Special Court\u2019s Scheme.<\/li>\n<li>A child protection policy based on the principle of zero tolerance for child abuse.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>POCSO aims to protect children from sexual abuse by providing legal and institutional support.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":34813,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-34812","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}