Children are the future of the nation. The future of a strong nation can only be measured on the strength of its upcoming generation. Therefore, the mental and physical strength of our children is critical. 

The children arevulnerable by nature. They can be easilyabused, sexually. Such offences can shatter them and would leave a permanent scar in their attitude, towards the society and such incidents become big hindrances in their natural growth and resultantly deterrent for society growth and weakens the nation.The uninterrupted growth of a child is the responsibility of parents, schools, society and the Government. All these stakeholders playthe dominant roles in upbringing a of child and in-turn to build a strong society and nation.

The Constitution of India mandates responsibility on Government to take all necessary steps for ‘child safety and security’ including to frame and enact special laws for children safety and security. The relevant law is “Protection of Children form Sexual Offences Act,2012” (‘POCSO Act’)along withother laws like Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 andCommission for Protection of Child Rights Acts,2005.  All these lawsmandate the child rights, safety and security.

POCSO Act insists stringent punishment to the perpetrators of sexual abuse. It also mandates compliancesagainst all the stakeholders at different levels.One of the objectives of the POCSO Act is to prevent the sexual offences of children. It needs awareness. Therefore, the awareness programmes/ trainings to be conducted in everyeducational institutes for children as well as parents, staff and teachers. The major reason from the sexual abuse against children is said to be the non-awareness of the seriousness of offences.Thus, it is imperative that every stakeholder must to know the provisions of the Act to understand and discharge their duties towards the children. Such duties are not optional.

The said awareness can be implemented through systematic and regular training sessions for teachers, NGOs, police etc.

VLegal (a resource institution empanelled by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India) feels, unlike other areas in Learning and Development, we do not have sufficient number of skilled Trainers in the field of POCSO. One of the main reasons for this is, the subject is based upon Law. Therefore, it needs the understanding of the basic legal knowledge about the Act, Rules and Guidelines.

What we need is a group of trained POCSO Torchbearers. With this thought,   We conducted ‘The Two days’ workshop on 15-16th November at Bangalore. The “Train the Trainer on Protection of Children form Sexual Offences Act,2012 (POCSO)”designed and conducted by VLegal to train the trainers of other fields and explain the background and the legal provisions of the subject and also how the provisions of the Act should be implemented.

The workshop was for trainers, L&D personnel and teachers, representative of NGOs, legal professionals etc. After attending this 2days’ Workshop, we strongly believe that the participants will now be able to conduct the basic awareness sessions on POCSO law,independently.

The workshop was attended by 16 Participants including coming from Lucknow, chennai and Trivendrum. The participants were psychology experts and Trainers.

The Basic Legal aspects about the protection of children from sexual abuse were described to participants with case studies. The psychological aspects of offender, the child and parents were discussed with the help of our psychology friends.

The related other laws and different Govt Authorities working on the subject was another topic which was discussed. Incase of any case of child sexual abuse how to take up the case, which authority to approach and what will be the legal process,  have been discussed.

The participants were told how after this workshop they can help the society, schools etc to take precautionary measures against child sexual abuse. They were shown the way forward to add to their profile as POCSO Trainer.

The workshop was full of energy with enthusiastic participants resulted in to overwhelming response  and excellent feed back.  

We, at Vlegal (Deepa nad Muhammed Rafeeque) feel happy and satisfied that we tried to contribute to the society with our small effort. A bis thankyou to all the participants to making it success.