NEW DELHI: For children who are facing sexual harassment at home, schools and elsewhere, the legal help is just a mouse-click away. Aimed at helping victims of child sexual abuse, the Centre on Friday launched an E-box for online registration of such complaints.
The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) E-Box, is an online complaint management system for easy and direct reporting of sexual offences against children to have timely action against the offenders under the POCSO Act, 2012.
The E-box will help maintain the confidentiality of the complainant. “The idea of an e-Box came out of a police initiative in which physical complaint boxes were placed in schools,” Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi said.
How E-box works
The E-Box is incorporated prominently in the home page of National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) where a user has to simply push a button named POSCO E-Box. This will navigate to a page with a window containing an animation movie. The animation movie reassures the child that whatever has happened is not his or her fault and he or she need not feel guilty.
After the user presses the arrow on this page, it navigates to another page where they have to select at least one picture option describing the category of harassment and fill the form with details such as mobile number, e-mail and description of harassment followed by ‘submit’ button. Following this, a complaint will be registered and a unique auto-generated complaint number will be flashed on the screen.
According to government data, sexual offences against children are rampant but only a small percentage gets reported. In most cases, the offender is a family member or a near relative or an acquaintance.