Alarming rise in rape of minors
TOI : PUNE: State statistics of crimes registered during 2008 released by the crime branch of the Maharashtra police reveal that as compared to 2004, rape cases involving girl children below 10 years of age across the state have gone up by 38.82% with 118 cases getting registered in 2008 as against 85 in 2004.
Similarly, the total cases of rape against juvenile girls was 690 in 2008, as compared to 615 in 2007. Figures that hit home hard, especially on the International Day for Prevention of Child Abuse: mental, physical and sexual.
What has remained more or less consistent is the high percentage of minors as rape victims. While it was 45.76% in 2004, in 2008, 44.24 percent of all rape victims were minors.
On a positive note, however, the number of girls sold for prostitution reduced from 31 in 2007 to 25 in 2008. Similarly, there was a decline in the total number of child murders in 2008 with 178 cases getting registered as against 213 in 2007.
The bigger picture, however, regarding what our children continue to face, is stark. A landmark study conducted in 2007 by the ministry of woman and child development, along with United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (Unicef) and Save the Children, covering 12,500 children and 4,800 young adults across 13 states revealed that boys were as much at risk of abuse as girls.
Other pertinent findings: Instances of abuse among the children between 5 and 12 years are the highest, two out of every three school-going children have been subjected to corporal punishment, while every second child reported facing emotional abuse. (In more than 80% of the cases pertaining to emotional abuse, parents were the cause)
More than half of the child respondents reported facing one or more forms of sexual abuse. Of these, 70 per cent did not report the mater to anyone. Over 50…More
