CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu witnessed its steepest ever increase in the registration of cases under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act in 2024. Cases went up from 4,581 in 2023, to 6,975 in 2024 — a 52.3% jump — according to data accessed by TNIE.
Child rights activists and government officials, however, stressed that this increase in registration of Pocso cases should not be seen as an alarming or sudden surge in crimes against children, but as a positive indication that cases, which would have otherwise gone unreported, have been coming to light due to strengthening of reporting mechanisms.
While cases under Pocso Act have increased ever since the legislation came into force, the rise in 2024 is the sharpest so far, as per data available with TNIE.
Child rights activist A Devaneyan said the positive takeaway is the indication that greater awareness and improved reporting mechanisms have led to more survivors and families coming forward to report such incidents.
Stegana Jency, director of the Centre for Child Rights and Development, highlighted that efforts to raise awareness in educational institutions along with measures like streamlining of survivor compensation might have contributed to the increase in registration of Pocso cases.
‘30,000 more Pocso awareness events conducted last year’
“This signals a societal shift that people are now more willing to report these crimes rather than remain silent due to fear of stigma,” Jency added. She further pointed out that stringent action being taken against school authorities, who fail to report sexual abuse incidents in their institutions, could be another factor for increased reporting.
Activists further said that since the perpetrators in most Pocso cases are persons known to the children, the rise in reporting reflected a growing willingness to look beyond familial or personal relationships and seek justice when children are affected. In an official release, the Tamil Nadu police noted that the sharp increase in reporting as a “milestone in safeguarding the rights of child victims against sexual abuse”. They correlated the increase with awareness being created among children about good and bad touch, and the Childline (1098) service.
They also pointed out that awareness programmes conducted by the police alone increased from 64,588 in 2023 to 92,797 in 2024. The number of downloads of the Kaaval Uthavi mobile application jumped from 94,651 in 2023 to 1,64,337 in 2024.
Shankar Jiwal, director general of police and head of the police force, highlighted the marked shift in the source of reporting of cases. While lodging of complaints directly in police stations accounted for the majority of the cases registered earlier, he said there has been a shift towards reporting through indirect sources such as child helpline, Child Protection Officers, and school teachers, etc.
The percentage of Pocso cases registered due to direct filing of complaints in police stations by the survivors or their families declined from 88% in 2022 to 84% in 2023, and sharply further to 77% in 2024, he said.
Importantly, Jiwal said the cases reported through the social welfare department (SWD) and hospitals saw a manifold increase. Cases reported through SWD went up 10-fold from 86 in 2023 to 856 in 2024. Similarly, cases intimated to the police from hospitals, where survivors may have come for treatment or due to pregnancy, doubled from 267 in 2023 to 526 in 2024.
“This trend suggests that even when the survivors or their families do not come forward to report, government agencies are pro-actively taking cognisance and lodging complaints with the police,” he said.
Officials from the child welfare and special services department said Rs 5.7 crore has been spent since 2022 for creating awareness and towards capacity building. The school education and health departments also play a crucial role, a senior official added.
Welcoming the increase in reporting, activists, the official, however, urged the state government to focus on preventive measures and speedy trials while ensuring support for survivors.
Devaneyan also highlighted the need to understand how many cases involved consensual romantic relationships between minors, who may have eloped to get away from their families. “Unfortunately, the State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB) does not seem to maintain separate records of such cases,” he said.
