Child-Friendly Justice under the POCSO Act: A Critical Analysis of Implementation Barriers and Reform Imperatives

Résumé fourni par la source

The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, represents India's legislative commitment to child-friendly justice, aiming to protect child survivors from secondary victimization during legal proceedings.This paper provides a critical analysis of the implementation of the child-friendly procedures under the act.This research uses a doctrinal methodology to examines statutes, case law, government reports, and scholarly commentary to evaluate the gap between the Act's progressive provisions and its practical application.The findings indicate that the Act's implementation is systemically undermined by three primary failures: significant infrastructural deficits, including the lack of truly child-friendly Special Courts; critical gaps in psycho-social support, particularly the ineffective provision of Support Persons; and procedural insensitivities from key stakeholders that result in the re-traumatization of the child.The study furthermore offers a comparative analysis with frameworks in the United Kingdom and Canada to identify international best practices.The paper concludes that without comprehensive reforms to address these institutional, infrastructural, and procedural failings, the child-friendly promise of the POCSO Act remains largely unrealised.

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