ANANTAPUR: Amidst increasing cases of commercial sexual exploitation of children in the region coming to light, officials, child protection units and civil society groups joined hands to develop a strategy to bring an end to this.
HELP, an NGO working against child sex trafficking in Andhra Pradesh, VIMUKTHI (survivors collective) and Girls Advocacy Alliance organised a day-long consultation at IMA Hall here on Monday with various stakeholders to address the grave issue.
As per the state government records between 2015-2017, a total of 567 cases were filed under ITPA but only seven cases were reported, with a poor conviction rate of 1.2%.
Further, only 29 minors were rescued even while civil society organisations are continuously on the job. The actual number of victims turns out to be in multiples of thousands. Underreporting can also be attributed to the factor that stringent laws such as POCSO and ITPA are being overlooked and hence no medical examination was done to confirm the age of victims, a report revealed.
“We are urging the district officials to give necessary directions to the the entire machinery, to ensure that innocent children in the region are protected from trafficking. It is time that the administration develops a district-wide campaign to prosecute buyers under POCSO and publicly shame child offenders,” Rammohan Reddy of Help Organisation said.
The meeting has unanimously resolved to seek stringent action against traffickers. Mandatory arrest of ‘customers of minor sex workers’, designing a training programme that constitutes professional investigation, strong intelligence mechanisms and proactive policing for police officials, government should pass a Bill that would be implemented strictly, criminalising those buying minors for sex with heavy monetary penalty ('10 lakh), in addition to punishment under POCSO or/and ITPA are the demands.
The policy experts at the consultation expressed fear that commercial sexual exploitation of children has become more clandestine in Anantapur district and other districts of Rayalaseema where the ‘business’ has now moved into residential areas, hotels and lodges and the men who buy sex from children are not arrested because the focus is always on traffickers.
AHTU in-charge Lakshman said: “We must let ‘customers’ violating children know that Anantapur police and administration are closely watching them and no abuser will go unpunished.”
During the deliberations, the heart wrenching experiences retold by actual survivors of trafficking helped the experts to propose stronger measures, focusing on ways to strike a strong blow at the ‘demand side’ of the problem, by drying the ‘industry’ of its ‘customers’.
CWC Chairperson N.Rajeswari said that AP was the first Indian state to explore the idea of choking demand for Commercial Sexual Exploitation (CSE) and in its bid to fight the crime, the state will soon be introducing a new legislation which will criminalise sex-buying from trafficked women and children. The police officers and the district administration agreed that the new law should focus on children since they are pushed into prostitution and do not voluntary choose sex work.
