According to an NGO analysis of National Criminal Records Bureau (NCRB) data, a total of 1,28,531 crimes against children were registered in India last year, which means an average of 350 such cases were registered every day during the pandemic. Were. In its analysis, Child Rights and You (CRY) said that in 2019, compared to the NCRB data, there has been a decline of 13.3 per cent in the total number of such cases.
In 2019, 1,48,185 cases of crime against children were registered, which means there are over 400 such crimes every day in the country. Although the overall number of crimes against children has declined, child marriage The child rights organization said there has been a 50 percent increase in online abuse and 400 percent in one year.
Further analysis of the decadal trend reveals that crimes against children India has witnessed a rapid growth of 381 percent in the last decade (2010-2020) and at the same time, the total number of crimes in the country has come down by 2.2 percent.
State-wise analysis shows that Madhya Pradesh (13.2 percent), Uttar Pradesh (11.8 percent), Maharashtra (11.1 percent), West Bengal (7.9 percent) and Bihar (5.1 percent) account for almost half of the total. Crimes against children in India (49.3 per cent), the organization said. West Bengal has overtaken Delhi in the list of top five states as compared to NCRB data 2019, which has seen a sharp increase of over 63 per cent in cases.
Preeti Mahara, Director, Policy Research & Advocacy, CRY, said: “Experiences during humanitarian crisis have shown that child protection issues become critical. School closures, mobility restrictions to contain the spread of the pandemic as well as the economic slowdown during the Covid pandemic have adversely affected livelihoods and household economic and food security of marginalized families. Therefore, it was highly likely that it contributed to increasing children’s vulnerabilities in cases of child labour, child marriage, child trafficking as well as gender-based violence.”
According to Cry’s analysis of NCRB data, cases under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 saw a nearly 50 per cent increase from 525 in 2019 to 785 in 2020. However, the number of cases registered under Child Labor (Prohibition and Regulation). The Act, 1986 saw a decline of about 38 per cent from 770 cases in 2019 to 476 cases in 2020.
This is in contrast to the recently released ILO Global Estimates on Child Labor 2020 Report, which states that there were 16.8 million more children in the age group of five to 11 years in 2020 than in 2016. The COVID-19 crisis threatens to further destroy global progress against child labor unless immediate mitigation measures are taken and new analysis shows that another 8.9 million children will be in child labor by the end of 2022, Which will result in pandemic-induced poverty. Said it.
Therefore, this decline should be viewed in the light of reporting and recording of cases before drawing conclusions regarding progress related to addressing child labor in India. According to the organization, another important aspect related to child protection during COVID-19 is the lack of opportunities for recreation and socialization.
As there were restrictions on in-person socialization, and teaching was moved online, there was a corresponding increase in the time children spent online, making them vulnerable to online abuse and exploitation, it said.
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