Despite its merits, should the POCSO Act be revised to correct the existing inadequacies?

POCSO Act is a commitment to child rights as key vulnerable communities and aims to build a holistic architecture for child protection against sexual offences. Merits of POCSO: (1) To have focused handling in child sexual abuse as mitigating cases in India NCRB (2) Special provisions that aim to provide conducive environment for children to share their abuse (3) To provide rehabilitation and all around care through counsellors it is welfare enacted (4) Specially useful also against child grooming, stalking. But Inadequacies: (5) It is gender neutral even though girl children can be covered (6) Set certain age of consent to regulate child marriages and healthy sexual health (7) Age of consent misused to file complaints against consensual sexual relatives (8) As perpetrators are often closely related – lack of provision for them (4) (9) Some crimes made non-cognizable law can victimize not cognizable Thus POCSO should be strengthened by: (1) Caster deliberation among communities – like schools, parents, psychological experts (2) To ensure sexual awareness and education to children

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