CHENNAI: Castration. That is the solution the Madras High Court has recommended to put an end to child sexual abuse. In an order that is bound to trigger a lot of debate, the High Court has recommended to the Centre to make castration a punishment for child sexual abuse.
Justice N Kirubakaran, whose order in 2014 suggesting mandatory pre-marital potency tests created much controversy, has in the recent order directed the Centre to consider making castration a punishment for those who sexually abuse children.
“Blood curdling, horrific, sadistic, terrifying, shocking, cruel and brutal gang-rapes of toddlers in New Delhi, in October 2015 would definitely justify this court to suggest castration as an additional punishment for child abusers, especially, child rapists,” said the order dated October 16 of the single bench comprising Justice Kirubakaran.
The court was hearing a petition filed by a British national, who is facing trial for sexually abusing a Class IX boy from Tamil Nadu after taking him to Delhi in 2011 on the false promise of better education. While the court granted relief to the accused by staying a Red Corner notice issued by the Interpol against him, it recommended castration as a punishment for child sexual abusers.
“This court could foresee that the suggestion of ‘castration’ would be surely condemned, censured and criticised as barbaric, punitive, draconian, cruel, etc. Inspite of many penal laws and the recent POCSO Act, 2012, prescribing severe punishment for crimes against children, the number of such cases has increased from 38,172 in 2012 to 58,224 in 2013 and to 89,423 in 2014,” read the court order.
The court noted that the conviction rate in sex offence cases against children was a mere 2.4 per cent and that between 2008 and 2014, crimes against children increased by 400 per cent. “Apart from many native monsters, foreign monsters are also stated to be regularly landing in our land to abuse our children,” it said.