Reshma Ravishanker
India reported a 26% increase in crime against children over the last two years as per the recently released statistics of the National Crime Records Bureau. In Karnataka, however, the number grew as high as 46%.
Across the country, the police registered over 1.28 lakh cases of crimes against children in 2020 while in 2022, over 1.62 lakh were registered. In Karnataka, this number however grew from 5471 cases in 2020 to 7261 in 2021 and 7988 in 2022.
Of the cases reported in India, the most common crimes were kidnapping & abduction (45.7%) and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (39.7%) including child rape. The crime rate registered per lakh children population was 36.6 in 2022 in comparison with 33.6 in 2021.
The report which enlists crimes involving children enlists a range of crimes from those who have gone missing to the cases taken up under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (2012)
As per the report, 83,350 children were reported missing in 2022. Of these, 20,380 were boys, 62,946 girls and 24 transgenders. The number of children missing has increased by 7.5% in 2022 from 77,535 children missing during 2021.
The study also had indicators for some densely populated cities such as Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi, Ghaziabad, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kanpur, Kochi, Kolkata, Kozhikode, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Patna, Pune and Surat. Here, a total of 20,550 cases of crime against children were registered during 2022, showing an increase in registration by 7.8% over 2021 (19,055 cases).
Juveniles in Conflict with Law
The number of juveniles who had a conflict with law, however, saw a decline. 5,352 cases were registered against Juveniles during 2022, a decrease of 8.2% as compared to 2021 (5,828 cases). Most of these were in the age group of 16 to 18 years during 2022.
Also read: Signs to watch out for if your child is sexually abused
Posted in National, News
