Maharashtra: Commission calls for review of POCSO Act

The Maharashtra State Commission for Protection of Child Rights MSCPCR chief has called for a review of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences POCSO Act at the departmental level citing a 600 per cent rise in cybercrimes against children and a rise in complaints involving child rights violations after the pandemicThe decision was taken during the three days of MSCPCR meetings held between May 16 and May 18 According to MSCPCR Chairperson Susieben Shah there are several loose ends in the statersquos execution of Acts intended to protect childrenrsquos rightsTalking to midday Shah said ldquoThere are many stakeholders involved in various departments and agencies that work for the protection of child rights including the police department home department and district child protection units among others Through this review we want to see if these departments are working in tandemrdquo According to Shah the commission is looking to identify why there is a 600 per cent rise in cybercrime against children along with increasing complaints of child marriage and missing children especially after the pandemic ldquoThere definitely seem to be some loose ends at the implementation and execution levelrdquo she saidAlso Read Maharashtra Crimes against women in state tripled in 5 yearsSusieben Shah chairperson MSCPCRldquoThe idea is to make the state and its policies more childfriendly We want to see if child rights are the focus of this government and will be framing questionnaires for the review This will help understand how people are working and what difficulties they are facing in the implementation and execution of child rights policies We will then send recommendations to the state government and also demand action along with an action taken reportrdquo she addedAccording to the National Crime Record Bureau NCRB in Maharashtra 308 POCSO cases reached conviction out of 1027 cases in which the trial was completed in 2020 At the end of January 2022 a total of two 26728 POCSO cases were pending trial in the country of which 30677 cases were from Maharashtra the NRCB data for 2022 revealedBetween 2019 and 2021 there has been a continuous increase in victims of child marriage in Maharashtra The number has increased from 20 in 2019 to 82 in 2021 as per National Family Health Survey NFHS dataAccording to the office of the special inspector general of police prevention of crime against women and children there were 16836 crimes against children registered in 202223 financial year as stated in the state economic survey for the period Crimes classified as kidnapping were the highest up from 7392 in 2020 and 9555 in 2021 to 9594 in 2022Following this there were 3266 cases of child rape in 2022 as compared to 2785 in 2020 and 3458 in 2021 There were 364 incidents of minors being murdered between 2021 and 2022 while cases of newborns being abandoned infanticide and foeticide stood at 302 24 and 21 respectivelyApart from deciding on an outline for the planned review meetings regarding the POCSO Act the MSCPCR meetings also saw detailed discussions on organising lsquoChild Adalatrsquo at the divisional level The MSCPCR also recommended that the bestperforming child rights government system be honoured on the occasion of Childrenrsquos DayldquoWe are also looking at holding a comprehensive review meeting for the RTE Right to Education Act soon There have been many cases of violation of the RTE Act coming to the fore The majority of these are from Pune Mumbai Thane and Aurangabad Hence a review will be planned We want to ensure that these laws and policies accomplish the goals for which they were brought into effectrdquo Shah said16836No of crimes against children in 202223