Law ministry clears scrapping time limit to report child rape

NEWDELHI: The ministry of law and justice has ratified the proposal of the women and child development (WCD) ministry to remove the clause of age limit for reporting cases of child sexual abuse, WCD minister Maneka Gandhi said. The WCD ministry had consulted the law ministry in view of the overriding provisions of the POCSO Act over other laws and provisions of mandatory reporting of such offences.

“Often, children are unable to report such crimes as the perpetrator in most cases is either a family member, a relative or closely known person. Studies have also shown that the child continues to carry the trauma of sexual abuse till very late in life.in order to overcome this trauma, many grown-up people have started coming out to report the abuse faced by them as children,” the ministry noted in a statement.