Govt to soon come up with mechanism to tackle child pornography

New Delhi: An institutional mechanism to tackle child pornography, which has recorded a rise over the past few years, will soon be introduced by the government.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development will set up a National Alliance against Child Abuse, which will comprise of members from the Ministry of Home, Law, HR, IT, civil society organisations and major web portals.

"37 per cent of all internet is pornography and a major portion of it involves children. Child pornography has to be dealt seriously. All the stakeholders will meet on January 16 to deliberate on the contours of the National Alliance against Child Abuse," Union Minister Maneka Gandhi said on Tuesday.

The Minister also proposed setting up of a Women helpline, akin to Childline to help women in distress.

Highlighting the Ministry's agenda for the year, Gandhi said her Ministry will take major steps to regulate pre-schools that are part of Anganwadi centres as also those run by private agencies in the wake of complaints about violation of child rights.

The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has recommended a set of regulatory guidelines which will decide on various issues such as teacher-student ratio, curriculum, infrastructure and the age of admission apart from the safety and security aspects.

Gandhi said that her Ministry was in talks with Law and Justice Ministry over setting up of a Central Tribunal for Adoptions.

"Forty per cent of the adoption cases are stuck in various courts and this has worried me. As per CARA guidelines, a court has to dispose a case within a period of two months from the date of filing of the adoption petition by the specialised adoption agency and in two hearings but it often takes much longer.

"So we want that a National Tribunal be set up to clear such cases so that parents don't have to wait for a year to be able to take home a child," Gandhi said.