The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill, 2019

Why is it in the news?
  • Members of the Lok Sabha unanimously passed a bill providing for the death penalty for aggravated sexual assault on children.
  • The Bill amends the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. 
  • The Act seeks to protect children from offences such as sexual assault, sexual harassment, and pornography.
Key provisions of the Bill
    • Penetrative sexual assault:
      1. The Bill increases the minimum punishment from seven years to ten years for penetrative sexual assault. 
      2. It further adds that if a person commits penetrative sexual assault on a child below the age of 16 years, he will be punishable with imprisonment between 20 years to life, with a fine. 
    • Aggravated penetrative sexual assault:
      1. These include cases when a police officer, a member of the armed forces, or a public servant commits penetrative sexual assault on a child. 
      2. It also covers cases where the offender is a relative of the child, or if the assault injures the sexual organs of the child or the child becomes pregnant, among others. 
      3. The Bill adds two more grounds to the definition of aggravated penetrative sexual assault.  These include:
(i) assault resulting in death of child.
(ii) assault committed during a natural calamity, or in any similar situations of violence. 
    • Currently, the punishment for aggravated penetrative sexual assault is imprisonment between 10 years to life, and a fine. 
    • The Bill increases the minimum punishment from ten years to 20 years, and the maximum punishment to death penalty.
    • Pornographic purposes:
      • The Bill defines child pornography as any visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct involving a child including photograph, video, digital or computer generated image indistinguishable from an actual child.
    • Storage of pornographic material: 
      1. The Act penalises storage of pornographic material for commercial purposes with a punishment of up to three years, or a fine, or both. 
      2. The Bill amends this to provide that the punishment can be imprisonment between three to five years, or a fine, or both. 
      3. In addition, the Bill adds two other offences for storage of pornographic material involving children.  These include:
(i) failing to destroy, or delete, or report pornographic material involving a child.
(ii) transmitting, displaying, distributing such material except for the purpose of reporting it.a
Source
The Hindu, PRS.




Posted by Jawwad Kazi on 2nd Aug 2019
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