Indian Government seeks Interpol's assistance for child pornography
What's the story
Interpol, an international police agency was reached out to by the Narendra Modi government in order to abolish sexual abuse including child pornography. According to experts, digital cameras and camcorders led to a surge in the availability of such content online. The Supreme Court on Thursday was hearing PILs filed by Indore-based advocate Kamlesh Vaswani and the Supreme Court Women Lawyers Association.
Background
Child Pornography
Child pornography is an international social evil; globally, countries acknowledge that production, exhibition, distribution and consumption of child pornography has adverse negative impacts on children. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), endorsed by majority of nations, states that child pornography is a violation against children. It also encourages nations to prevent the immoral use of children in pornographic materials.
Definition
UNCRC
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is a human rights treaty. Laying out civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children; it legally obligates countries to protect children's rights.
Law
Laws against child sexual abuse
Laws against child pornography, which falls under child sexual abuse are different in different countries. The primary criteria is the country's definition of who is a "child." As the age of consent to sexual behavior varies from country to country, so do definitions of what constitutes child sexual abuse. According to the UNCRC, a child is a person under 18 years of age.
India
Protection of Children Against Sexual Offences Act, 2012
The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act was passed by the Indian Parliament in May 2012. Under this Act, a "child" is any body below the age of 18; this definition is gender-neutral. The Act also provides precise and to-the-point definitions of different forms of sexual abuse, including penetrative and non-penetrative sexual assault, sexual harassment and pornography.
Assets
The benefits of Interpol
International police agency (Interpol), maintains a regular update of the "worst" of such sites. In 2009, the UN General Assembly assigned Interpol to maintain and disseminate a global list of URLs containing the worst of child abuse material to national central bureaus. Under this agreement, the Department of Telecommunications will obtain the list maintained by Interpol, containing domain names hosting child sexual abuse contents.
Data
Sexual exploitation in the form of internet imagery
According to the National Crimes Records Bureau data, in 2015 there were 96 reports of children being exploited in the form of internet imagery. Compared to the year before (2014), it was a rise of 140%.