The Bill will soon be tabled in Parliament. Studies have revealed a direct link between child pornography on the internet and actual child abuse.
CHENNAI: India’s fight against child pornography and efforts to make it an offence under the Information Technology (IT) Act may meet a pre-mature death, as a provision on the same suggested by an experts committee has mysteriously disappeared from the final draft of the IT (Amendment) Bill.
The Bill will soon be tabled in Parliament. Studies have revealed a direct link between child pornography on the internet and actual child abuse. The ministry of women and child development released a report last Monday saying every second child in India is abused.
The experts committee, chaired by former IT secretary Brijesh Kumar and former Nasscom chairman Kiran Karnik among others submitted its report in August 2005. It included Section 67 (2) to address child pornography, a growing global offence, with higher punishment.
The section said: “Whoever intentionally and knowingly publishes or transmits through electronic form any material which relates to child pornography shall be punished with imprisonment for a term of not less than three years…” In the final draft, which is now with a standing committee, ‘child pornography’ is replaced with ‘sexually explicit act.’Flabbergasted by the change, Karnik said: “When I saw the draft Bill, I wondered why the term was deleted.”
R Ramaraj, former CEO of Sify and another committee member, added: “The panel was unanimous in the inclusion of the term since we felt child pornography should be dealt with seriously. I don’t know what happened,” he said. According to experts, it would take the teeth out of the IT Act in dealing with child abuse on the net.
“The culprit who did it does not understand the worldwide dimension of child pornography which has become epidemic with the help of the net. In fact, a separate legislation is immediately needed to deal with the malaise,” former CBI director RK Raghavan said.
“This is a regressive step after India signing and ratifying the international convention on children rights. If the term ‘child pornography’ is uncomfortable, let us use the global term ‘child abuse images',” said director of the Centre for Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse (CPHCSA) Vidya Reddy.
The standing committee chairman Nikhil Kumar, however, refused to comment saying he is ‘bound by an oath of secrecy.’ When pointed out that the draft Bill is in the public domain, he said: “The standing committee is meeting on April 20. I am yet to see the Bill.” IT minister Dayanidhi Maran was, however, not available for comment.
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