RTI reveals NCPCR received only 51 complaints of child abuse in 5 years
7 Apr, 2013An application was filed with the ministry of women and child development under the Right to Information (RTI) Act seeking to know the status of complaints of child abuse received by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR).
The reply from the Ministry states that the commission received only 51 complaints of sexual and physical abuse of children in last five years. These figures pertain to the whole of the nation. Out of these 51 cases, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights lodged an FIR in only 8 and most of the cases were merely referred to the local administration for further investigation or were taken up by the courts. The reply stated that most of the cases were related to abuse in homes, shelters and orphanages run by the government and that in most cases the child was abused by a close person.
The low number of cases seems to be surprising as according to a government study conducted in 2007, nearly 42% of children in India are victims of one or the other form of sexual abuse. It would be worth finding the total expenses incurred on the NCPCR during the past 5 years.