VI. Recommendations

By enacting the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, the government of India has taken a significant step in acknowledging and attempting to address the rampant sexual abuse of the country’s children. However, to be effective, the government needs to ensure proper implementation of the act and other relevant laws and policies. Thus far the central and state governments have failed to enforce key safeguards. The shortcomings in the implementation of policies have left children vulnerable to abuse.

Steps the Central Government Should Take:

For Legal Reform and Policy Implementation

• Ensure that the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights has sufficient resources to monitor the effectiveness of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. Appointed members should be experts in child protection and be backed up by effective investigative units. The commission should have an independent capacity for investigations.
• Review the effectiveness of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act within a reasonable period, and seek amendments in consultation with women's rights, children's rights, and civil liberties activists to address shortcomings in the law, including the presumption of guilt against the accused.
• Use an evidence-based approach to legislative drafting including existing evidence of consensual sexual contact among adolescents under age 18. Consider recommendations from activists to lower the minimum age of consent for sexual contact to reflect the evolving capacity and maturity of adolescents, and respect their rights to freedom from all forms of gender-based violence, including sexual assault, “honor” killings, forced marriage, harmful traditional practices, and their rights to sex education, access to reproductive and sexual health without discrimination, and to help adolescents deal with their sexuality in a responsible way. Ensure that the law does not punish the same population—children—that it is designed to protect; under-18s who engage in consensual sexual contact with peers should not be criminally punished.
• Expand and improve training for pediatricians and gynecologists on recognizing and handling cases of child sexual abuse, including by developing a mandatory gender-sensitive training module for medical students on treating and examining victims of child sexual abuse, which should be developed in consultation with lawyers and experts on women's, children's, and health rights.
• Assist state governments in developing guidelines and training to properly implement the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act for the police, government and private social workers, child welfare committee members, doctors who work with children, judges, and other court personnel.
•  Encourage all state governments and union territories to establish their own commissions for the protection of child rights and support these efforts.
• Amend the Juvenile Justice Act to require registration and the meeting of specified standards by children’s residential care facilities before they open. Establish penalties for facilities that fail to register.
• Ensure that all institutions housing children are subject to regular and periodic inspections, and institute regulation of residential care facilities.
• Maintain and update data on existing child protection structures and mechanisms. Conduct a detailed nation-wide survey to understand the extent of child sexual abuse, and develop an awareness campaign backed by effective services including trained and licensed counselors.
• Prioritize implementation of the Integrated Child Protection Scheme and ensure that states properly and promptly utilize the resources allocated to them to create effective child welfare committees. Facilitate training of all child welfare committee members on India's juvenile justice and child protection systems. Prohibit government officials and those running children’s residential care facilities from being appointed as members of child welfare committees to prevent conflicts of interest.
• Develop and disseminate guidelines for school administrators and teaching staff on protecting children from sexual abuse, recognizing abuse, appropriately speaking to victims, handling disclosure of abuse, and taking appropriate action when allegations arise.
• As part of the government’s right to education policy, initiate and institutionalize a curriculum for children to prevent sexual abuse by helping children participate in their own protection through age-appropriate information, skills, and self-esteem.
• Create effective mechanisms for protection of at-risk children including street children and those engaged in child labor. Ratify and implement International Labour Organization Convention No. 138 concerning the Minimum Age for Admission to Employment. Special attention should be given to children in the informal sector. Create open shelters for street children and evolve a tracking system to follow up in cases where children are restored to their families, to discourage their return to the street.
• Formulate a comprehensive law on human trafficking especially covering all forms of child trafficking.
• Expand and promote Childline 1098, the helpline for children in distress, so that it operates in every district, and the telephone operators have the training to deal with cases of child sexual abuse.

For Reforms to the Criminal Justice System

• Implement police reform as recommended by the Supreme Court, including the establishment of a complaint mechanism to address police abuse and dereliction of duty. Provide training to ensure that the police investigate cases and do not re-traumatize victims and their families through a hostile or inadequate response.
• Adopt and implement a protocol for the medical treatment and examination of victims of child sexual abuse, in accordance with guidelines developed by the World Health Organization. Ensure that physicians and other medical staff respond to cases of sexual abuse in a sensitive manner that minimizes invasive examination and provides access to continued reproductive, sexual, and mental health services. Train doctors in all public health facilities to adopt and use this protocol.
• Develop, in consultation with women's, children's, and health rights experts in India, multidisciplinary centers in at least one government hospital in every district of the country or, when not practical, in a facility located according to an appropriate population-to-distance norm, staffed with trained personnel and equipped to provide integrated, comprehensive, gender-sensitive, and child-friendly treatment, forensic examinations, counseling, and rehabilitation for children that suffer sexual abuse and act as expert witnesses.
• Implement the national scheme for compensation for victims of rape.
• Abolish the death penalty and in the interim institute a moratorium on capital punishment including in cases of abuse of children. Human Rights Watch opposes capital punishment in all countries and in all circumstances because the death penalty is unique in its cruelty and finality, and it is inevitably and universally plagued with arbitrariness, prejudice, and error.

While the Indian central government should develop suitable policies, it is the state governments that have the main responsibility for proper implementation.

Steps the State Governments Should Take:

For Legal and Policy Implementation

• Implement the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and give priority to the training of the police, court personnel, government and private social workers, child welfare committee members, and doctors who work with children.
• Establish a commission for the protection of child rights if one does not exist in a state. All states should provide adequate resources so that such commissions can carry out their mandates and operate effectively and independently. Appoint qualified and independent experts to these commissions in a transparent manner. Ensure that police and other departments respond promptly to directives issued by the commissions.
• Appoint qualified and independent individuals to serve on child welfare committees. Adopt standard operating procedures and ensure that the committees have sufficient resources for members to carry out all their responsibilities, including mandated inspection of children’s residential care facilities. Ensure that professional counseling services are available for children that have suffered sexual abuse.
• Ensure that committee offices are safe and suitable for interviewing children and that potential committee members do not have conflicts of interest. Train all child welfare committee members in conducting inspections and interviewing children before they take up their posts.
• Ensure that all institutions housing children are subject to regular and periodic inspections, and institute regulation of residential care facilities that includes independent and confidential interactions with children and staff.
• Conduct a survey of all residential care facilities and provide this information to child welfare committees, state child rights commissions, and the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights. Establish a monitoring mechanism in which children are independently interviewed in a safe environment.
• Encourage child rights commissions to create a system for the proper vetting of all staff members in residential care facilities, including guards and cleaners. Program staff should receive appropriate training in child protection and positive disciplining.
• Create non-institutional care alternatives such as kinship care, community-based care, or open shelters. Support community-based protection mechanisms and alternative care.
• Draw up guidelines for schools and other educational institutions to prevent the sexual abuse of children, as directed by the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Rules, 2007.
• Implement guidelines to ensure that school administrators understand their responsibilities for preventing child sexual abuse and for taking appropriate action when it is found. Support teaching staff with trainings to protect children from sexual abuse, recognize abuse, properly speak to suspected abuse victims, and appropriately handle disclosure of abuse. Display the Childline 1098 number in every school. States should also support moves to expand this helpline for children in distress into every district, and instruct officials to cooperate with its activities.
• Require all institutions housing children to provide age-appropriate information to children, and inform them about their rights and complaint procedures. Each institution should have a board of counselors whom children can easily approach. Require all institutions to present information on each child to the child welfare committee, as the child is admitted and released.
• Create multidisciplinary centers in at least one government hospital in every district or, when not practical, in a facility located according to an appropriate population-to-distance norm, staffed with trained personnel and equipped to provide integrated, comprehensive, gender-sensitive, and child-friendly treatment, forensic examinations, counseling, and rehabilitation for children that suffer sexual abuse.

For Reforms to the Criminal Justice System

• Provide training to police to sensitively handle complaints of child sexual abuse so that they do not re-traumatize victims by aggressively questioning the child or family members. This should include training of junior ranks that have most public dealings at police stations or as first response units.
• Establish a policy that under no circumstances should the police attempt to dissuade or intimidate a complainant, with disciplinary consequences for those who do so.
• Expand and improve courses for police officers on protection of child rights including familiarization of officers with new laws and policies to ensure their proper enforcement. This should include training of junior ranks that have most public dealings at police stations or as first response units.
• Address problems of overwork and understaffing in the junior ranks that often leads to the reluctance to register complaints. Increase the number of investigating officer (sub-inspector) positions, as recommended by the 2000 Padmanabhaiah Committee on Police Reforms.
• Implement the Supreme Court’s directive in the Prakash Singh v. Union of India case to separate investigation and law order functions of policing by assigning a significant proportion of trained officers exclusively to investigation duties.
• Provide training in and access to technology that can assist investigations, and take steps to attract instructors qualified to teach forensic science. Train investigating officers on modern, non-coercive techniques for suspect and witness interviewing and questioning. Provide sufficient resources to state and regional forensic labs, including mobile forensic labs, to permit them to return evidence evaluation reports to police within a reasonable period.
• Encourage the police to work closely with child welfare committees and local activists to identify cases of sexual abuse and take prompt action.
• Assist the central government in framing and implementing appropriate policies and guidelines for medical examination of victims of sexual violence, in accordance with guidelines developed by the World Health Organization. Ensure that physicians and other medical staff respond to cases of sexual abuse in a sensitive manner that minimizes invasive examination and provides access to continued reproductive, sexual, and mental health services. Train doctors in all public health facilities to adopt and use this protocol.
• Provide prompt and professional counseling to all children who report being abused. Civil society groups that provide counseling should be supported and helped to expand. Village councils, or panchayats, should be encouraged to assist victims of child sexual abuse.
• Establish “child courts” to handle cases of child abuse as provided for under central government schemes. Arrangements should be made whereby children do not have to confront the accused, while at the same time ensuring that defendants can hear testimony and instruct their advocate in accordance with their fair trial rights. Steps should be taken to ensure that children are not overwhelmed by court surroundings.

International Actors, Including Donors and Aid Agencies, Should:

• Encourage the Indian government to respect its international commitments to implement laws protecting children.
• Provide technical support to India’s central and state governments to ensure the effective implementation of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, the Juvenile Justice Act, and the Integrated Child Protection Scheme.
• Support initiatives to increase awareness of child sexual abuse and help India develop guidelines to protect children from sexual abuse.
• Encourage the government of India to implement the United Nations guidelines on providing alternative care for children to ensure the protection and well-being of children deprived of parental care.
• Provide technical support to the Indian government to conduct a broader survey on child sexual abuse to update and improve on the findings of the 2007 report. The new survey should more accurately establish the scale of child sexual abuse in India. It also should examine in detail what happens to children after they report their abuse to adults, and how the criminal justice system and protection mechanisms such as the child rights commissions and the child welfare committees respond to victims.
• Provide support to civil society groups that are working to address child sexual abuse, and help them expand. There are very few organizations counseling survivors, and these are mainly based in the large cities.