The Hindu : Sexual abuse: Supreme Court directive to Centre

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 23, 2002

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Sexual abuse: Supreme Court directive to Centre

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI Oct. 22. The Supreme Court today granted six weeks time to the Central Government to file its response on implementation of its action plan to prevent sexual abuse of women and children.

A three-Judge Bench comprising Justice V.N. Khare, Justice Ashok Bhan and Justice Arun Kumar granted further time on a petition filed by Shakti Vahini alleging that the 1998 action plan was gathering dust and that none of the recommendations had been implemented.

Pursuant to the court directions, the Centre had set up a committee on prostitution, child prostitutes and children of prostitutes and devised plan of action to combat trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation of women and children.

In 1998, a report containing an action plan was prepared by the Department of Women and Child Development in the Ministry of Human Resource Development.

The petitioner said that most of the recommendations of the committee had not been implemented. Further as there was no study or data on the number of women and children who were victims of sexual exploitation for commercial purposes and trafficking, it was believed that the current figure exceeded one million.

The petitioner submitted that in the past decade the volume of human trafficking had increased and today it was the third largest form of transnational illegal trade after arms and drugs. The failure of the Government to implement the measures set out in the action plan had caused severe injury and prejudice to the victims of prostitution. It wanted suitable directions to the Government to implement the recommendations contained in the action plan.

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