Teen romance in line of child abuse law fire -Ananya Sengupta

-The Telegraph

New Delhi: A 2012 law to protect children from sexual abuse is being used to target teen romance, a study of such cases in Delhi over the past three years suggests.

The study by the National Law School, Bangalore, has shown that in 10 per cent of the cases filed under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, the accused was in a relationship with the victim. In another 19 per cent, the two said they were already married.

"In a significant number of cases, we found that the girl had left her house and gone away with her boyfriend, after which the (girl's) parents turned to the law. The tragedy of Pocso is that under the guise of protecting children, minors are being dragged into the criminal justice system and the resulting trauma," said Swagata Raha, one of the authors of the study.

Under the law, anyone under 18 is a minor and sex, even if consensual, between a minor and an adult or between two minors amounts to rape.

Another concern, voiced by several child rights activists, is that the law seems to be leading to child marriages as the accused chooses to marry the victim to escape criminal prosecution.

"Some of the victims alleged that their age was fudged by their parents. Judges don't often get into the legality of marriages. Thus, marriage becomes a ground for acquittal of the accused in these cases," Raha said.

According to the study, 69 per cent of the victims were between 12 and 18 years of age, implying that the bulk of them were teenagers.

Minority was contested in 30 per cent of the cases where the girls were stated to be between 16 and 18 and in 17 per cent of the cases where the age was alleged to be 12 to 15 years, says the study that is titled Report of Study on the Working of Special Courts under Pocso in Delhi.

The conviction rate was only 16 per cent, mostly because the victims turned hostile, said the study. The National Law School team examined judgments, court proceedings and also spoke to the lawyers and the victims. In absolute numbers, 555 cases ended in acquittals and only 112 led to convictions.

"There are a large number of instances when parents file cases against their children's boyfriends as they are upset with their relationship. This law cannot have a blanket age of consent. The world has changed and teenagers, whether we like it or not, are sexually active. They cannot be dragged to court over it," said activist Enakshi Ganguly of the HAQ Centre for Child Rights.

"The time has come to review Pocso to bring down the age of consent to 16 years and also to put in a proximity clause whereby decisions can be taken based on the difference of ages between the victim and the accused," Ganguly added.

The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights had in 2010 proposed that any consensual sexual act should not be an offence when it involves two persons who are both above 14 and are either of the same age or the age difference is not more than three years.

In the UK, the age of consent is 16 years. In the US, it varies from 16 to 18 across states. It is 14 years in Germany and Italy, and 15 in France.