National Consultation on "Protecting Children from Sexual Abuse: Implementation of the POCSO Act and Beyond"
24-25 February 2018
New Delhi

HAQ: Centre for Child Rights, Delhi and the Centre for Child and the Law, National Law School of India University (CCL-NLSIU), Bangalore, released three important studies on the implementation of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012. The studies were released by Hon’ble Justice Madan B. Lokur and Sh. Ajay Tirkey, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD), Government of India at a two-days National Consultation organised by CCL-NLSIU and HAQ in association with TATA Trusts, Human Dignity Foundation and UNICEF on 24th and 25th February, 2018 in New Delhi. 

The POCSO Act was one of the most awaited steps taken by India to address sexual abuse of children, enabling children to access justice as well as psychosocial and rehabilitation support. 

Government and civil society organisations have since engaged with this law in different ways to make it more effective. Trainings modules have been developed around the law and trainings are being regularly held by the judicial academies, national and state legal services authorities as well as the police. Some states such as Delhi set up vulnerable witness deposition complexes to help children testify at ease. 

Alongside, many have engaged with studying the implementation of the legislation to build evidence that can inform law and policy change and identify areas requiring improvement. 

In 2014, HAQ: Centre for Child Rights, New Delhi and the Forum Against Child Sexual Exploitation (FACSE), Mumbai decided to embark upon one such study with support from UNICEF India Country Office. The study is based on 1803 cases from 5 Special Courts in Delhi and 154 cases from 3 Special Courts in Mumbai for the period 14 November 2012, when the POCSO Act came into force, up to 31 July 2015, as available from the courts’ websites. At the same time, HAQ has been supporting individual cases of sexual abuse of children as part of its work on child protection and access to justice since the year 2002. A need was felt to analyse some of those cases too as often information available in the public domain is unable to provide insights into the real issues our children face. Since this work is ongoing, a set of fact sheets were prepared and released at the consultation. The fact sheets are based on 126 cases where both legal and psychosocial support has been provided by HAQ between 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2017 as part of its project on “Access to Justice and Restorative Care”, supported by the Human Dignity Foundation. HAQ will continue to update these fact sheets and add more in future. 

In January 2015, the Centre for Child and the Law, NLSIU too launched empirical studies on the working of Special Courts under the POCSO Act to assess the extent to which they complied with structural and procedural provision under the Act and analyse judgments to understand the application of the POCSO Act by the Special Courts. The objective was also to understand the extent to which Special Courts were child-friendly based on interviews and judgment analysis. Reports have been published by CCL on the working of Special Courts in Delhi (2016), Assam (2017), Karnataka (2017), Maharashtra (2017), and Andhra Pradesh (2017) with support from the Tata Trusts. The findings of these studies have been further consolidated and a report comprising critical essays based on the five state level studies covering 2788 judgements, conducted by CCL-NLSIU, was also released at the consultation. 

The Consultation was attended by 130 participants from across the country representing law enforcement, judiciary, prosecution, central and state governments, national and state legal services authorities, law schools, national and state commissions for protection of child rights, health and medicine, mental health, lawyers, media and communications, UN and other international agencies, NGOs working on children’s rights and child rights activists.

Programme Schedule | Presentation | Photo Gallery

The three reports:

• Implementation of the POCSO Act: Goals, Gaps and Challenges [Study of Cases of Special Courts in Delhi & Mumbai (2012 – 2015)]
• Children's Access to Justice and Restorative Care: Fact Sheets
• Implementation of the POCSO Act, 2012 by Special Courts: Challenges and Issues {Based on CCL-NLSIU’s Studies on the Working of Special Courts in Five States