SC Women Lawyers’ Association Demand Chemical Castration of Child Rape Convicts

May 04, 2018

The SCWLA (Supreme Court Women Lawyers Association) has written a letter to the Prime Minister of India seeking chemical castration of offenders for child abusers.

The letter seeks introduction of new legislative provisions by the Parliament in addition to the existing penal provisions in view of the alarming increase in sexual abuse of small girls and boys. The letter also highlights the recent horrifying sexual offences against children in our nation.

The letter emphasizes on the following:

“Section 376(2) (i) deals with a culprit who commits rape on a woman who is under 16 years of age but the instances are numerous where the girl children and babies are raped. When the society faces perversion where the child abuses like rape is rampant, there is a warrant for specific provision for imposing higher and severe punishment on such culprits.

A specific legislation providing for additional punishments like chemical castration of the offenders and the Death Penalty in the rarest of rare cases is the need of hour in such cases.

Further the term “child” requires to be defined, regard being had to the situation obtaining in the present day society.Definition of child must include both small girls and boys between age group of 0 months-12 years. Because in the recent past there have been uncountable incidents wherein small boys have also been sexually exploited and raped and have suffered untold pain and agony.”

The SCWLA has urged the Parliament to urgently give serious attention to the points highlighted above and make an appropriate legislation at the earliest including Chemical Castration apart from Death Penalty.

It cannot be denied that recent trail of obnoxious incidents taking place in our country against children render the existence of children vulnerable in India. We deem our children to be safe at home but statistics indicate that in cases of child abuse most of the times it’s a relative who is involved.

The Centre in the wake of recent upsurge witnessed in child rape incidents in India has promulgated the Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance, 2018 that provides for death penalty in cases of rape of children below 12 years. However, expert studies state that imposing death penalty for child rape may lead to unreported cases as in such cases most of the time it is a relative or a known- person who is involved. We hope that the law formulated with the hope to deter such criminals does not lead to non-reporting of such child rape and child abuse offences in India.