Child Sexual Abuse in India : Socio-Legal Issues

Abstract

Child Sexual Abuse or child molestation is a form of child abuse in which any person uses a child for sexual stimulation. Child Sexual Abuse can be of many kinds like touching in private parts, taking obscene photos, showing child pornography picture to child etc. In India, sexual abuse against girl child has added fuel to the fire and it had made its place in one of the hot topic for debate and research in India. In Delhi, a girl aged 5 years was brutally raped by 2 men and she was left in the bushes with bleeding in her genital area. A girl who don’t know the meaning of rape is raped and due to the failure of our executive as well as judiciary system still now the culprit are moving free in search of new victim and are not arrested yet due to absconding. A survey by United Nations International Children Education Fund (UNICEF) on demographic and health was conducted in India from 2005 to 2013 and it reported that 10% of Indian girls experience sexual abuse between 10-14 years of age. It is believed to be true that mostly the cases of Child Sexual Abuse include the people who are well known with the victims. As a result of this, the family members don’t go to police station for complaining about Child Sexual Abuse. Child Sexual Abuse in India is governed by ‘Protection of children from Sexual Offences Act 2012’. Instead of having a strong law for Child Sexual Abuse, due to the lack of awareness among people and old mentality of harm to reputation of families in society, they avoid to register complaints. Through this research paper I will discuss about the socio-legal issues of Child Sexual Abuse and its remedy.