IASbaba's Flagship Course: Integrated Learning Programme (ILP) - 2024 Read Details
TOPIC: General Studies 2
- Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.
- Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and States and the performance of these schemes
In News: The Supreme Court has directed special courts to award compensation to sexually abused children on the lines of the NALSA scheme for victims of sexual assaults and acid attacks, till the Centre finalises the rules.
Details
National Legal Services Authority’s (NALSA) compensation scheme
Gives compensation slabs for victims of sexual assault, acid attacks and even loss of foetuses, and earmarks a minimum Rs 5 lakh and Rs 7 lakh respectively for women who go through a crisis after sexual or acid attacks.
Why this decision – An analysis
This is a true innovation of the social justice delivery system, enforcing the law of the land in such an innovative manner to deliver waves of social justice. What therefore is important is the mindset of the judiciary, the legal prosecution system, the criminal justice system itself.
We need to understand how trained are our public prosecutors that are handling the cases under these laws, because after all, the compensation that the judge is going to award is going to be as good as the case that the public prosecutor is going to argue in the court before him.
We cannot put a price on the trauma that someone has really gone through. But at least with this kind of a compensation people will talk more about it. Earlier what was happening was in the society people were not reporting the crime – the girl was unmarried normally as the parents used to get scared of reporting thinking that maybe she may not be able to get married or what will the society think. Unfortunately, in our society, the victim is always the person who has always been blamed for one reason or the other. Now, what will happen is that atleast people will start reporting.
Awareness generation on the issue of sexuality and sexual abuse has to become a part of daily discourse in schools, as part of curriculum. We have to start talking about gender rights, equality and sexuality. We've got to start talking about body parts and we've got to look at it as not something that the person should be ashamed of.
We have to create an atmosphere where if any part of the body including a private part is hurt we actually seek out treatment. It shouldn't be a taboo but a natural course ahead. It is a cultural change which should begin from one’s home.
We need to pay equal attention to the families of the victims because often it's the families that are perpetrating the same mindset. There is absolutely zero communication as parents on their own will assume certain things and do certain things, not with the bad intention but with the intention to protect their child; but end up with actions that are detrimental to the child’s understanding and overall growth and development. And this inaction turns out to be very expensive for both the child and parents.
For that matter, even the online abuse of children is on the rise whether it is cyberbullying or any kind of stalking or depression symptoms –people are trying to attack the children and involve them in financial crimes inflicting psychological harm. This is a huge area of concern. There is a need to provide children with the right education on how to safeguard themselves online – what kind of games the children are playing today, are the parents able to monitor these online activity, how many parents are actually able to filter out the content or read the browsing history. We need to start conversations around these issues.