At home, in school, in park, on roads, everywhere children are at risk. Whenever I open newspaper, almost in every page there is a news about crime against children specially girl child. Where is the end to all this?? Child safety is mere a dream now

Children are the blessings of God and they are the source of joy for the whole family. But in a developing country like India this picture is not that pleasing. In our country people sell their child due to poverty. Parents don’t allow their child to go to school because of poverty. Children are forced to labour to meet family needs. But here is a twist, after my research I found that in every class of society, crime against children is present.

Some cases are reported to police and very shockingly many more cases are suppressed by parents due to the fear of humiliation. But I want to question here that, have we considered how much that victim child is suffering due to all this? What kind of mental trauma she or he is going through? As a parent we always think about society and our prestige in priority but what about the child who has not got any justice for his or her sufferings?

10 to 15 years back our society was not like that. It was safer than now. My question is……… what is responsible behind this increasing crime against children? Let us see the records………

CRIME                                            CASES IN 2013         CASES IN 2014                   % INCREASE

1. Crime against children                  5,224                    89,423                     53.6%

2. Murder of children                      1,657                        1,817                    9.7%

(Excluding infanticide)

3. Infanticide                                          82                              121                                     47.6%

4. Child rape                                      12,363                      13,766                                    11.3%

5. Kidnapping and                           28,167                     37,854                  34.4%

    Abduction

6. Procuration of                               1,224                        2,020                                   65.0%

     minor girls

More cases of crime against children -------------------------

1. A total of 121 ‘Infanticide’ cases were reported in the country during 2014.
2. A total of 4,593 cases of ‘Sexual Harassment’ were reported during the year 2014.
3. A total of 280 cases of Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 were reported during the year 2014.
4. A total of 147 cases of ‘Child labour’ (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986 were reported during the year 2014.A total of 8,904 cases under ‘Protection of Children from Sexual offences Act’, 2012 were reported during the year 2014.

This entire database is published on government portal on 07 April 2016.

Here I showed all the data because I want everyone to know and be concerned about the trend it showing. In spite of having so many laws under IPC and some special laws too, the real picture is shown above. Where is child safety?  It is shocking that in spite of all judicial activities how the crime rate is increasing?

Our government and police are doing their part on crime against children but we as a member of the society and above all as a parent should do something for child safety. Our children are the future of the society and the country as well. I think awareness programme can help in this matter. Also we all should discuss with our children to make them alert about good and bad intentions of people.