Crime Against Children: Aggravated Form Of Sexual Offence Under POCSO

Khushbu Sanoria, Galgotias University

ABSTRACT

Children below the age of twelve are more vulnerable to crime as they cannot express themselves and unaware about the mishappening going on with them .There is no standard definition of Aggravated sexual assault but by going through S-5 and S-9 of the POCSO Act it can be inferred that an offence against a minor by someone in a position of authority or against someone suffering from disability,physical torture,gang rape,assault using deadly weapons, causing grievous injury or bodily harm etc and the sentencing for such offence is more as compared to the other offence .In India ‘POCSO Act’ and ‘INDIAN PENAL CODE’ contain provisions to address ‘AGGRAVATED SEXUAL OFFENCE’ . Law governing sexual violence in India have been debated, reformed and re-enacted time and again but the incident of sexual violence continues to rise. According to NATIONAL CRIME RECORD BUREAU there was a 7% increase in the crime against women in the last year. The lower section of the society or the children residing in the urban areas are more vulnerable to the crime. We must recognise that there is something wrong with the way we have approached the issue of aggravated sexual offence since no amount of legal reform have been able to bring down the number of cases. Laws must recognise the socio- economic realities of our country and marginalized communities with special reference to the children residing in urban area. The aim of this paper is to provide a research framework for the study of “CRIME AGAINST CHILDREN: AGGRAVATED FORM OF SEXUAL OFFENCE UNDER POCSO” and this is Doctrinal research and during this research various reports, surveys, Acts, Law journals, Research papers are taken into consideration.

Keywords: POCSO, Child abuse, Crime against Children, Aggravated sexual offence.