[Reader-list] Most cases under Sec 377 are for child abuse

[Aditya Raj Kaul]

Most cases under Sec 377 are for child abuse
*Vijaita Singh<http://www.hindustantimes.com/Search/Search.aspx?q=Vijaita%20Singh&nodate=1>,
Hindustan Times
New Delhi, July 03, 2009*

More than 300 cases have been registered under Section 377 of the Indian
Penal Code over the past five years in Delhi alone. In 90 per cent cases,
the people who were booked were adults, held on charges of abusing children,
mostly boys and in few cases, girls.

None of the cases registered were for incidents where there was mutual
consent.

Till June 30 this year, 32 cases had been registered under Section 377 IPC
in Delhi.

In May, police had arrested a 21-year-old cleric on charges of allegedly
sodomising a 10-year-old boy in the Hazrat Nizamuddin area of south Delhi.

Police and child right activists say this is the only section that is
slapped against people who abuse children.

According to the Crime Records Bureau information and studies on criminal
jurisprudence and child abuse in India, Section 377 is the only legal
provision to protect the millions of abused children and to supplement the
shortcomings in the rape laws, which apply only when there is a vaginal
penetration.

“We have never arrested people where there was a mutual consent. Majority of
the reported cases are those of child abuse and crime against weaker sex. In
absence of this section we wouldn’t be able to book such offenders,” said a
senior police officer on condition of anonymity.

On December 27 last, police had arrested a Home Guard for allegedly
sodomising a 16-year-old boy near Kashmere Gate in north Delhi. Police said
the accused had lured the teenager to a park where he reportedly sexually
assaulted him.

Amod Kanth, chairman, Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights
(DCPCR), said, “Section 377 of the IPC happens to be the only protection of
law for children and minors and adults who are sodomised against their will
because such sexual assaults fall within the definition of ‘unnatural
offences’.”

“Adult transgenders and homosexuals who indulge in consensual sex are
usually not punished under the section,” he said.