The court observed that the process of spreading awareness has not yielded the desired results.
Kochi:
Expressing its anguish over the rise in sexual offenses against school children, the Kerala High Court on Friday directed the state government and CBSE to issue an order to include a prevention oriented program on sexual abuse as a part of the curriculum. Gave.
Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas issued the direction while considering an application for regular bail relating to an incident of aggravated sexual assault by the petitioner on a 15-year-old victim who was pregnant.
In its order, the court referred to a law called the ‘Erins Law’, named after Erin Merrin—a child abuse survivor in the US—passed by the state of Illinois, which mandated all schools to have prevention-oriented child sexual abuse programs. It was made mandatory for implementation and suggested that it could be used as a guideline by Kerala and the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) by including the program as part of the curriculum.
“The State of Kerala and the CBSE shall issue necessary and appropriate orders, making it mandatory for every school under its control and within the territory of Kerala to include a prevention-oriented program on sexual abuse as a compulsory part of the curriculum”, court constitution In exercise of his powers under Article 226 of the said
It said a committee of experts would be constituted by Kerala and CBSE to identify the way and methodology to provide age-appropriate prevention-oriented programmes.
“The Committee of Experts shall submit its recommendations within an external period of six months from its constitution, and thereafter appropriate orders shall be issued by the State of Kerala and the CBSE as recommended by the Board to implement the program from the academic year 2023-24, The court said, and directed all the authorities concerned to comply with its directions.
The court observed that the process of spreading awareness about sexual offenses has not yielded the desired results.
Even the terms “good touch” and “bad touch”, which are reported as being taught in some schools, are considered too broad and vague.
“These broader terms may require better classification such as “safe touch”, “unsafe touch”, “unwanted touch”, etc., not only to identify abuses but also to avoid false or false allegations. Too.
The court observed that its effort in the proceedings required to develop a more functional and authoritative process for creating awareness about the provisions of the POCSO Act in the minds of the government officials as well as the school authorities, but also to develop a . The methodology for providing systematically the repercussions of sexual offences.
It said that it should include ways of identifying cases of sexual offences, means of preventing such offences and other related issues.
The court said the alarming rise in the number of sexual offenses against school children required introspection.
“At times, the perpetrators are young. Young children indulge in such abusive acts for a variety of reasons ranging from pre-planned crimes to the natural curiosity of adolescence and arising out of some erotic relationship.”
“Sometimes sexual acts are committed with the belief that both partners’ consent is enough to absolve them of guilt. By the time they realize their beliefs are wrong, it is too late, And the situation becomes disastrous, with very inconvenient consequences and beyond any remedial measures”, the court said.
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