By Manveena Suri, CNN – September 21, 2018

Increase in Crimes

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, there were 39,000 rapes in India in 2016, a rate of roughly one rape every 13.5 minutes. The total marked a 12% spike over the previous year.

The push to establish the registry follows mass protests in support of tougher measures to reduce the levels of sexual violence.

In April, thousands of people took to the streets across India in reaction to the rape and killing of an 8-year-old girl in the isolated Himalayan district of Kathua. The girl was drugged, gang-raped and strangled before her body was dumped in the forest five days later. Three police officers and a former government official were among the eight men arrested in the attack.

In another shocking case, an 11-year-old girl in Chennai was drugged and gang-raped in July by 17 men, ranging in age from their 20s to 60s, who worked in the building where she lived, according to police.

NDSO –National Database of Sex Offenders

With the launch of the NDSO, India joins a small number of other countries, including Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, in maintaining a record of convicted sex offenders.

However, unlike in the US, where the database can be accessed by the public, the NDSO will be available only to law enforcement agencies.

But anti-sexual violence campaigners have voiced concerns about its misuse, in particular the potential for government overreach.

Enakshi Ganguly, co-founder of the HAQ Center for Child Rights, a Delhi-based NGO, said that database would not “be helpful for India.”

“Everything that is an instrument of change can be used to target the same people and used for corruption. Can you imagine police having access to this level of information?” said Ganguly. She suggested that corrupt police could use the information to target individuals for crimes they may not have committed. “The only saving grace is that it’s not going to be a public registry,” she added.

The database will be maintained by India’s centralized National Crime Records Bureau, the government agency responsible for collecting and analyzing national crime data.

Series of rape cases spark protests in India

Tackling sexual crimes through technology

India on Thursday also launched an online portal to report complaints relating to online sexual abuse, child pornography and sexually explicit content such as rape.

The portal will enable people to anonymously make a complaint, which will be handed to police in the complainant’s respective state or union territory.

In spite of introducing new measures and legislation, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has come under fire for failing to publicly address the issue of sexual violence.

“It’s a social issue…it’s not one party’s issue.”

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/09/21/asia/india-sex-offenders-intl/index.html

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