Child Trafficking and Sexual Violence Against Children: Issues & Challenges

Sexual abuse against children is one of the most heinous of offences. It is an appalling violation of their trust and an ugly breach of our commitment to protect the innocent. Although there is no exclusive national data on child trafficking for sexual exploitation, it is an open secret that children are particularly vulnerable to trafficking for sexual exploitation both within and beyond the borders of the country. The process of child trafficking for sexual purposes is a vicious cycle. Due to their tender age, children are inherently vulnerable to exploitation by miscreants. Once trafficked, these children usually end up in the bottom rungs of society and live in perpetual poverty until they are rescued and integrated with the society. The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (Act) has been enacted specifically to protect innocent child victims from any kind of sexual abuse. The Act is a comprehensive legislation on the subject. It gives a detailed framework of the procedure for investigation, medical examination and for recording of evidence. It has considerably widened the definition of sexual abuse and given a gender neutral definition of a child. The Act has been amended by Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act, 2019. The amendment stringently penalizes the offences against children even up to death penalty. The Act has although been very finely drafted keeping in mind the minutest details, but the problem lies with its implementation. A strict watch by the government accompanied by awareness campaigns for people is the need of time. One of the biggest drawbacks of the POCSO Act is fixing the age of the child at 18 under Section 2(d); leaving no scope of any flexibility. The age should be ascertained by examining the mental capacity of the child. There might be cases of persons suffering from cerebral- palsy wherein a person aged 35 might have the brain of a child of 8 years. Then the only resort left is Section 375, IPC. This issue needs to be addressed.