Speed Post News Network
New Delhi: An online complaint box for reporting child sexual abuse, the POCSO e-Box, was launched by ,Minister for Women and Child Development, Maneka Sanjay Gandhi in New Delhi on Friday. Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO), e-Box, is an online complaint management system for easy and direct reporting of sexual offences against children and timely action against the offenders under the POCSO Act, 2012.
Speaking on the occasion, Maneka Gandhi said that the idea of an e-Box came out of a police initiative in which physical complaint boxes were placed in schools. The e-Box will make it possible to implement it on a largescale across the country. A large number of incidents of abuse are against close relatives and so they get pushed under the carpet, the Minister said. E-Box is very simple to operate and will maintain the confidentiality of the complaint, she explained.
The e-Box is incorporated prominently in the home page of National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) website http://ncpcr.gov.in/ where a user has to simply push a button named POSCO e-Box, according to a PIB release. This will navigate to a page with a window containing an animation movie. The animation movie reassures the child that whatever has happened to him/her is not his/her fault and she/he need not feel guilty and that NCPCR is a friend which will help her.
Sexual offences against children are rampant but only a small percentage gets reported. According to a study, about 53% of children surveyed, reported having faced one or the other form of sexual abuse in their lifetime. In most cases, the offender is a family member/near relative or an acquaintance. The child victim in such cases generally does not report these offences. Sexual abuse scars the psyche of the affected child for entire life. A child who is sexually abused has to face very serious consequences such as cognitive impairment, violent and risk behaviour including depression and anxiety, said the PIB release.