Underage sex crime now, but who gets the blame?

It’s official. Sex between individuals below the age of 18, even if consensual, is a crime.

Updated on: Nov 15, 2012, 01:47:17 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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It’s official. Sex between individuals below the age of 18, even if consensual, is a crime.

However, the new rules — notified on Wednesday to enforce the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act — failed to address how law enforcing agents can identify the accused and the victim when both the persons involved are minors. This concern was raised by several state governments.

“It is a highly complicated issue,” said a senior official from the Women and Child Development ministry. “Juvenile justice boards from each state will take a call on a case-to-case basis.”

Meanwhile, the discussion on differentiating between the accused and the victim rages on. “The one who complains first should be considered the victim,” a ministry official said. The complainant is happens to be the girl’s parents in a majority of such cases.

However, others say this would be improper because it would result in unnecessary trauma and social ignominy for the child. “Both the children should be considered as the accused, and the board should conduct an inquiry to verify the claim whether the act was consensual or not,” said a Delhi government official. If the incident is identified as a case of consensual sex, the children should be let off after counselling, he added.

The rules, however, make it clear that if one of the partners in the consensual sexual act is over 18 years of age, he or she would have to be punished in accordance with the Act.

Also linked with cases concerning sexual crimes against minors is the issue of age determination. While the rules stipulate that a government agency should conduct the test, many states want it performed under the supervision of a special court in complete adherence to the procedure defined in the Juvenile Justice Act.

Nevertheless, minors affected by sexual assaults can now claim compensation for the crime. The rules stipulate that suitable compensation, as decided by a special court, should be paid to the child. The extent of compensation would depend on the gravity of the offence, loss of education or disease, and disability or pregnancy suffered.

Providing relief to such minors, the rules also say that documentation or magisterial inquiry should not be pre-requisite for getting a victim treated at a hospital.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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