Early Times Report
JAMMU, Nov 12: Nearly 4,000 aspirants attended an online campaign on different social media platforms organized on POCSO Act by the Directorate of Jammu School Education.
The initiative was taken to educate about the crime against the children which has risen particularly during Covid-19-induced lockdown, Romesh Kumar, head counseling cell at Directorate of School Education Jammu said. "Due to COVID-19 lockdown, children have become more vulnerable to sexual abuse as in most of cases the accused are someone known or trusted family member," he said. A panel discussion was held as part of month long awareness campaign on Child Protection from sexual abuse cum POCSO Act-2012 under Counseling Cell of Directorate of School Education, Jammu in collaboration with District Child Protection Unit Jammu, Child Line India Foundation, and District Child Welfare Committee organised. According to the National Crime Record Bureau's report, crime against children has increased by 4.5 per cent in 2019 as compared to 2018, as many as 1,48,185 crimes against children were reported in 2019 in the country.
Child abuse cases are rising for the last few years but during lockdown the number rose shockingly as reported by news agencies. Director School Education, Jammu, Anuradha Gupta said the intensity of such cases is more than what is reported because of the taboo surrounding reporting, identity of perpetrator and ignorance about child rights. It hinders overall development of the child. Sensitization will help us in building an atmosphere of confidence to prepare the child for reporting, acknowledgement of child rights by parents especially mothers and ways to deal with it with a word of caution that we should not be over suspicious, she said. An order has already been issued by DSEJ directing Psychological taskforce members to sensitize students, teachers, and parents about the POCSO Act, Mother specific PTMs have also been proposed to make them aware about the nuances of Child sexual abuse. Further Special sessions with PRIs in all the 10 districts of Jammu division is also one of the major activities planned in the month of November, 2020. P D Nitya, SP North-Jammu informed about various mechanisms of reporting like dialing 100, through email or childline, redressal, sensitization of police officers for handling the child abuse, juvenile cases. Shalini Sharma chairperson CWC Jammu spoke about various features of POCSO act 2012 whereas Dr Surinder talked about psychosocial interventions to curb this heinous crime.
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