Hope Parliament discusses report of ad-hoc committee on child pornography: Naidu

Expressing concern over child pornography in the country, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday hoped that Parliament discusses the report of an ad-hoc committee on the issue set up by Rajya Sabha.

Naidu, the Rajya Sabha chairman, had set up an ad-hoc committee of the Upper House on child pornography.

The panel objective was to prevent sexual abuse of children and contain access to and transmission of child pornographic content on social media.

"I wish Parliament discuss the report on pornography at the earliest," Naidu told media persons during an interaction with them.

The panel headed by Rajya Sabha member Jairam Ramesh made 40 recommendations, including making monitoring apps mandatory on all devices and amending the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and the Information Technology Act.

 

The report was presented to Rajya Sabha Chairman Naidu on January 25.

Expressing concern over the seriousness of the prevalence of the horrific social evil of child pornography, the committee has recommended important amendments to the POCSO Act, 2012 and the IT Act, 2000 besides technological, institutional, social and educational measures and state-level initiatives to address the alarming issue of pornography on social media and its effects on children and society as a whole.

The committee urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take up the subject of child pornography and the measures required to combat it in one of his forthcoming 'Mann Ki Baat' radio broadcast, besides taking the lead in building up a global political alliance to combat child pornography on social media on the lines of the International Solar Alliance initiative.

The 40 recommendations made by the ad-hoc committee relate to adoption of a broader definition of child pornography, controlling access for children to such content, containing generation and dissemination of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), making accountable the internet service providers and online platforms for denying access to children and removing such obscene content from online sites, besides monitoring, detection and removal of such content.