What is the POCSO Act and how is it used: A guide
The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act was enacted in 2012, and is a special law to protect children.
The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act has been in the news recently, after Bombay High Court Justice Pushpa Ganediwala’s controversial judgments in child sexual abuse cases. Back in 2019, the POCSO Act garnered interest when an amendment was made to it when minimum punishment for aggravated as well as penetrative sexual assault on children below 16 years was increased from 10 to 20 years, extendable to life imprisonment or death.
Significance of the POCSO Act
The POCSO Act was enacted in 2012 and is gender neutral — it recognises that boys can be victims of sexual violence as well. It defines a child as someone under the age of 18. The Indian Penal Code does not recognise that sexual assault can be committed on boys. The Act also increased the scope of reporting sexual crimes against children. It expanded the definition of sexual assault to include non-penetrative sexual assault as well as aggravated penetrative sexual assault (sections 3 to 10), and also included punishment for persons in positions of trust of authority like public servants, staff of educational institutions, police etc.
Notably, this law recognises sexual harassment of a child which involves touch, and also that which doesn’t (sections 11 and 12), such as stalking, making a child expose themselves or exposing themselves to a child, and so on.
The POCSO Act also specifically lays down stringent punishment for exposing children to, or using them to create child sexual abuse material (CSAM, also referred to as child pornography) under sections 13, 14, and 15.
While POCSO does not explicitly recognise grooming, experts say that section 11 of the Act can be interpreted to recognise and criminalise it wherein, it . Grooming involved acts of establishing, building a relationship with a child either in person or online so as to facilitate either online or offline sexual contact with the child, section 67(b) of the Information Technology Act does criminalise it.
When is POCSO used?
Sections of the POCSO Act may be added by the police in the First Information Report (FIR) whenever a sexual offence is committed against a child. While special laws override the IPC, sections of both are often mentioned in the FIR. For instance, an FIR would book an accused under section 376 (rape) of the IPC as well as relevant sections of the POCSO Act.
Punishments under POCSO are more stringent than under IPC.