POCSO Act: Par committee recommends reducing juvenile delinquency age to 16

New Delhi :  Noting that minor sexual offenders may commit more serious and heinous crimes if left untreated and uncounselled, a parliamentary panel has recommended to the government to consider bringing down the juvenile delinquency age from 18 to 16 in cases under the POCSO Act.

In its report submitted to Rajya Sabha on Monday, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs, headed by Congress MP Anand Sharma, observed that there has been a large number of cases under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act where the age of juvenile offenders has been below the threshold age for applicability of the law.

The report said, “Therefore the committee recommends that the MHA may take up with MoW&CD (Ministry of Women and Child Development) to review the current age limit of 18 years. It’ll see if it can be reduced to 16 years for the applicability of the POCSO Act, 2012.”

The panel said that due to lack of legal awareness, particularly amongst minor children and juveniles, they are getting involved in crimes like stalking, online-trolling, molesting, etc., in their schools and colleges, considering these as non-criminal activities.

Therefore, it is necessary to impart knowledge of cyber-security to them so that they do not get targeted by offenders.

The committee, therefore, recommends that the Ministry of Home Affairs may take up with the Ministry of Education to include the basics of cyber-security in the school curriculum at an early age, it said.

According to the panel’s observation, it is very important to conduct a nationwide campaign to create awareness amongst all sections of society regarding the use and misuse of cyberspace and also about the evolving technology which is being leveraged to commit different and new types of cyber-crimes.

It is also very important to protect minor children and juveniles from indulging in crimes like stalking, online-trolling, molesting, etc, it said.