India Crime: Justice for children as government approves death for rapists

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02:45

India has approved the death penalty for people convicted of raping girls under the age of 12. Outrage erupted nationwide after a series of rapes against young girls. But not everyone is happy with the government's move. CGTN's Ravinder Bawa has the story.

Voices of outrage, against rapes of girl children, rising from various corners of the country pressurized the government to come out with an executive order.

After an emergency meeting, the government announced death penalty for rapists of girl children below the age of 12 years. Many hailed government's decision saying it will instill fear among criminals.

STUTI KACKER, CHAIRPERSON NATIONAL COMMISSION FOR PROTECTION OF CHILD RIGHTS "We have to take all kinds of step that we can take to protect children, specially young children and may be it is the fear of this punishment will prevent miscreants pedophiles from abusing our children who cannot protect themselves and who are just helpless victims."

While supporters of death penalty are jubilant that perpetrators of child sexual abuse should be given strictest of punishment there are serious issues in its implementation, specially because in most of the cases the victim knows the criminal.

VRINDA GROVER WOMEN & CHILD RIGHTS LAWYER "It will be counterproductive in the sense it will a deterrent for the victim to come forward. They will be greater pressure to invisibilize the crime and not to take it to the justice system and that is cause of serious concern that instead of deterring the criminal or the crime it will deter the victim."

To make matters worse, according to the figures from the latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) in 2016, less than 3 percent of the child rape cases that came up before the courts ended in convictions.

VRINDA GROVER WOMEN & CHILD RIGHTS LAWYER "The concern here is that we have an abysmally low conviction rate and when we do not get conviction how are we talking of sentences. And therefore it feels like a kind of a gimmick or legal populism to blunt both national and international outcry."

It was in 2012 that rape laws were made tougher to include death penalty after a gruesome assault on a young outraged the country. Despite making laws, stringent rapes against women and children are still making the headlines. Ravinder Bawa.