RS Committee makes 40 recommendations to check children’s access to pornography content

Speed Post News Network

New Delhi : An Adhoc Committee of the Rajya Sabha (RS) constituted by Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu has made 40 far reaching recommendations to prevent sexual abuse of children and to check access to and transmission of child pornography content on the social media. The report of the Committee was on January 25, 2020, presented by the Chairman of the Committee Jai Ram Ramesh to Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu.

The initiative of Naidu in setting up of such a Committee to examine and report on an issue of such a wider social concern is the first of it’s kind and has been widely appreciated. Jairam Ramesh, in the Report of the Committee, stated that it is a good model that can be followed from time to time to get members of Rajya Sabha to deliberate on pressing social issues.

Expressing concern over the seriousness of the prevalence of the horrific social evil of child pornography, the Committee has recommended important amendments to the Protection of Children From Sexual Offences Act, 2012, and the Information Technology Act, 2000, besides technological, institutional, social and educational measures, and state level initiatives to address the alarming issue of pornography on social media and its effects on children and the society as a whole.

The 40 recommendations made by the Adhoc Committee relate to adoption of a broader definition of child pornography, controlling access for children to such content, containing generation and dissemination of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), making accountable the Internet Service Providers and online platforms, detection and removal of content, preventing underage use of such content, enabling parents for early detection of accessing such content by children, enabling effective action by the governments and authorised agencies to take necessary preventive and penal measures etc, according to a PIB release.

Noting that the purveyors of child pornography seem always to be one step ahead of the regulators, the Committee stressed on the need for implementation of its recommendations as an integrated package of measures and not piecemeal to have any value and impact. The Committee urged the Prime Minister to take up the subject of child pornography and the measures required to combat it in one of his forthcoming ‘Mann Ki Baat’ broadcast besides taking the lead in building up a global political alliance to combat child pornography on social media like the International Solar Alliance initiative.

The Committee has broadly sought to address two main issues viz., access of children to pornographic material on social media and circulation of pornographic material on social media in which children are abused.