Child Sex Child

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India is a country of diversified religions and cultures. Despite its continuous growth, it could be seen that the opinions and views of the people have not undergone a significant change. Since time immemorial, a boy child has been regarded to be an important part of the family. The birth of a child is considered to be the most joyous moment for a family especially when it’s the baby boy. But when the child commits such a heinous crime, is it still right to consider him as a child below eighteen years of age, or to consider him at par with the adults? According to Article 1 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), “a child means every human being below the age of 18 years unless, under the law applicable to the child, …show more content…

This Act was constituted in terms of the Conventions on the Rights of a Child and the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the administration of Juvenile Justice 1985 (Beijing Rules). The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 outlines two target groups. One group is the “Child in need of care and protection” and the other part deals with the “juveniles in conflict with law”. Child in need of care and protection basically implies to provide protection, rehabilitation, care, treatment, and a safe environment to the children. It helps to restore the family to the child or family related environment to the child. For this purpose, Child Welfare Committees have been established to look after the welfare of the children. It consists of a chairperson and four other members out of which one should be a woman and one should be an expert legal adviser in the field of children related issues. The motive of this committee is to uphold the rights of the children as well as to provide them with the shelter homes if the child does not have any family support. Now the second part explains about “juveniles in conflict with law.” It calls for the establishment of Juvenile Justice Boards (JJB). JJB’s enquires into the nature of the crime committed …show more content…

It is really unbelievable that a crime committed by a child of seventeen and a half years is considered to fall under the JJ Act. This means that a child after the completion of six months would attain the knowledge of an adult. It means a child of seventeen and a half years of age does not have the knowledge of the crime that he is committing and will attain all the knowledge after six months. In Delhi Rape case, the person who committed the crime was seventeen and a half years old according to the Court and was thereby tried under JJ Act, 2000; and as per this act, he could not be punished beyond the period of three years. This incident led to an uproar among the people and various activists and many demanded lowering of the age. Some of the legal experts are of the view that lowering of the age is not a solution to the problem. They believe that imposing harsher punishments it is more likely to increase the crimes rather than improving the behavior of the convict. They believe that it is necessary that rehabilitation homes should be provided to them, they should be provided counselling, shelter homes and so on. A child activist with a prominent child rights NGO, said that the government must take a look at the existing law framework. “The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO), 2012 refused to lower the age of consent

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