As per data provided by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), Maharashtra tops the list of states with the most number of cases filed under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012. This new report only covers the period between 2017-2019.
With a total of 8,503 cases, the officials said that in nearly 50 per cent of the cases, minors were lured into meeting people via online contact, who then subjected the minors to sexual abuse or entered into a sexual relationship by promising marriage. Per law, engaging in or maintaining a physical relationship with someone below the age of consent is statutory rape.
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The NCRB report found that cases of abuse of minors are growing in Maharashtra, up from 2,398 cases in 2017 to 2,944 cases in 2018, and 3,161 cases in 2019. This report classifies the offenders based on their relationship with the victim. Most of the offenders were said to be “online friends”, though the report also uncovered incidents wherein minors aren’t safe from their own neighbourhood, friends, or even family members.
Of the overall list of states, Uttar Pradesh is in second place with 6,978 cases filed under the POCSO Act. This is followed by Madhya Pradesh with 5,348 cases, Karnataka with 4,339 cases, and Gujarat with 4,228 cases. There is no data available for the number of cases filed in 2020, as the NCRB statistics are only available until 2019.
The report adds that the most vulnerable people are those between the ages of 16 and 18, which is followed by the age group of 12-16 years, 6-12 years, and in some cases even children aged below six.
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Joint Commissioner of Police, Yashasvi Yadav said - “Minors become friends with strangers online, and get manipulated. A potential offender collects details about such minors by first gaining their confidence through activities such as sharing video games. What starts seemingly innocuously gradually escalates to blackmail, to cases of sextortion.”
“We have started Operation Blackface to tackle child pornography and have also tied up with the Interpol, our latest operation being Trail List to track child pornography offenders,” he added.
A study conducted by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), based on the open-source research on ‘Online Child Abuse and Exploitation’, has illustrated how low-cost gadgets and cheap high-speed internet has given sexual offenders untethered access to online communities. The study also pointed out that the biggest hindrance in combating online child abuse is the scarcity of trained and dedicated personnel within law enforcement agencies.
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