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The Modi Government on April 1, 2022 reported a sudden fall in the number of child sexual exploitation cases from 2019 to 2020 while answering questions on the same during Parliamentary proceedings.
Referring to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, Union Minister Smriti Irani said child sexual exploitation cases went down from 1.48 lakh (1,48,000) registered cases in 2019 to 1.28 lakh (1, 28,000) registered cases in 2020. However, following the same trend, persons convicted for these crimes also declined from 15,902 persons in 2019 to 11,145 persons in 2020. The highest number of convictions in the latest year were in Uttar Pradesh with 15,271 registered cases whereas the highest cases were registered in Madhya Pradesh (17,008 cases) that reported 1,400 convicted persons. Ladakh was the only region to report no conviction in 2020 despite two registered cases in the same year.
Significantly, while the questioning BJP MP Ramcharan Bohra asked about incidents of abuse, violence, sexual exploitation against children, the Ministry only talked about the latter. The response is conspicuous by its silence on child marriage cases that shot up from 523 cases in 2019 to 785 cases in 2020. Further, the data does not talk about the 2,222 cases of child trafficking and 54,785 cases of kidnapping that were reported in 2020.
Similarly, Irani failed to answer TMC MP Sougata Ray’s question about fewer convictions of persons accused of atrocities against women despite a large number of registered cases.
““Police” and “Public Order” is a state subject in the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution and the responsibility to maintain law and order, protection of life and property of citizens including investigation and prosecution of crimes against women rests primarily with the respective state Governments,” said Irani.
NCRB recorded crimes against women at a significant 3.78 lakh (3,78,000) in 2018, 4.05 (4,05,00) lakh in 2019 and 3.71 (3,71,000) lakh in 2020. However, NCRB, again conspicuously did not provide data on convictions in these cases during the same period.
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