India News | Create Awareness Among Students About Child Abuse: DMK MP

New Delhi, Mar 29 (PTI) Expressing concern over the high number of child abuse cases in the country, DMK leader Tiruchi Siva on Tuesday stressed that regular workshop should be organised in schools to create awareness among students as well as teachers.

Raising the issue during the Zero Hour in the Rajya Sabha, Siva said that according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) Report, between 2018 and 2020, around 40,000 cases have been registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

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"These are registered cases, and there are many unregistered cases as well. The number declined in 2020 during the Covid period, but now, it has started rising again," he said.

"Children are very vulnerable in our society and this sort of sexual abuse against them impacts them very much physically and mentally and sometimes leads to traumatic memories which the children may carry throughout their lives," Siva said.

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Citing a survey, he said a majority of the Indian schools either do not have a mechanism for dealing with such situations, or if they do, a significant majority of the students are not aware of the Act at all.

"So, this is a very serious issue and the absence of mechanism has to be addressed very seriously... There is a need for immediate intervention to make it mandatory for every school that regular workshops are held for both, students and teachers, and awareness must be created," he said.

Several MPs from other parties associated themselves with the issue.

Meanwhile, Abir Ranjan Biswas (TMC) raised the issue of alleged data breach in the CISF records.

"on March 6, 2022, the Central Industrial Security Force i.e., C.I.S.F. suffered data breach. Several internal documents and personal records of serving officers were freely accessible online for a number of days," he claimed.

Biswas pointed out that the number of data breaches has quadrupled since 2020, with nine large-scale breaches in 2021 alone.

The government should take sincere note of this crisis, he said. "Sensitive and personal information cannot be vulnerable to leaks. It violates our citizens' right to privacy and threatens the nation's sovereignty."

V Vijayasai Reddy (YSRCP) urged the government to increase the fertilizer subsidy for the farmers at the earliest in view of supply crunch due to the Russia-Ukraine war.

"In the past one year, our farmers have been very badly hit because of the significant rise in fertilizer prices. On an average, prices of various fertilizers have increased by 45 to 60 per cent. This has pushed the input cost of the farmers' produce, which is gradually eating away the meagre profits which the farmers earn out of agriculture," he said.

Kanakamedala Ravindra Kumar (TDP) urged the government to take immediate steps to curb the menace of illicit and spurious liquor, particularly in Andhra Pradesh. He sought a probe into the recent incident that had happened in Andhra Pradesh by Central Government agencies.

Chhaya Verma of the Congress raised concern over the non-implementation of provisions of the Right to Education Act, 2009 in government schools.

Sushil Kumar Modi (BJP) made a case for timely local body elections with reservations for OBCs. He said panchayat and local body elections in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra had to be postponed in wake of a ruling of the Supreme Court regarding OBC list.

He said the apex court has directed there should be separate list for OBC reservations for education and job purpose, and political reservation.

Modi further said there is one list for SC/ST on the basis of which reservation is provided in education, jobs and elections. "There should also be only one list in the OBC reservation as well".

If needed, the government should bring in a law, he added.

Joining the issue, P Wilson (DMK) said on the one hand, the Constitution provides for OBC reservations, but on the other hand there is a deadlock by the court judgment.

He urged the prime minister to intervene and break the constitutional deadlock by either releasing the caste census data, collected during Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011 to all the states or bring amendments to the Constitution.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)