Remembering the recent judgement of Bombay HC on pertaining to the POCSO Act, here is what to remember and where to be careful about the POCSO Act.
What is the POCSO Act?
POCSO Act stands for the Protection of Children from Sexual Offence (POCSO) ACT, 2012. It came into force on November 14, 2012, and is a comprehensive law to protect children from all forms of sexual abuses, assaults, sexual harassment, pornography and som on, while safeguarding the child’s interest to the maximum extent at every stage of the judicial process. I take this opportunity to make you all aware and equip you to be able to report any such crimes.
Important points to remember under the POCSO Act:
- This act is gender-neutral.
- Any person can lodge a complaint under this act and it isn’t necessary that it has to be done by family or relatives.
- The consent of the child isn’t required and is irrelevant. This is mainly intended to protect the child might have been groomed to accept abuse as the NORM.
- This act is applicable only in cases wherein the survivors are children and offenders are adults.
- This act allows both men and women to be considered as offenders as in many cases it has been proved that the women were abettors and assisted the male offender in the grooming process.
Points to remember:
- Never delay in filing the complaint.
- Make a note or recording of all the details of the horrifying incident like date, time, place, how it happened and so on.
- Don’t care what others think and find someone whom you can depend on.
- Remember that it wasn’t your fault irrespective of what others tell you.
- Be a fighter! Ensure that justice is served, do your best to use all your resources wisely as that is when these offenders will be caught.
Also, ensure that you don’t make it your life’s primary objective! “The world is beautiful out there and there’s a lot of it which you haven’t experienced Focus on coming back to being the BEST YOU! Remember not to let the ONE THORN that hurt you make you STOP seeing, smelling or touching a rose, EVER!” said Adarsh Benakappa Basavaraj in a Magazine of TNIE.
