Maharashtra Economic Survey: Crimes against kids, women significantly rise in state

Mumbai: The economic survey shows that crime against women and children are on rise compared to the last two years.

Reported crimes against children have increased, second to only Uttar Pradesh (UP). Maharashtra registered 15,000 crimes against children and UP has 18,000. Incidence of child murder has increased from 132 registered in 2016, to 147 cases reported in 2017. Out of these, 44 infanticide cases reported in 2016 have reduced to 24 reported in 2017.

In fact incidence of child rape is seen to be on the rise. 2086 cases of child rape were reported in 2016, which have increased to 2305 in 2017. in fact a rise in kidnapping cases too is seen to be on the rise. In fact 6960 cases of kidnapping were reported in 2015, these increased to 8016 in 2016 and rose more to 8850 in 2017. Abandonment of children too has increased multifold. 13 cases of abandonment were reported in 2015, which doubled to 26 in 2016 and increased to 213 in 2017.

Activists working in the field of children especially say in cases of rape against children, there is a new trend that needs to be tackled differently. Speaking to Free Press Journal, Nandita Shah, co-founder of Akshara Centre said, “There are multiple issues for this problem. One of the main issue we are noticing is though the age of consent has gone up from 16 to 18 years, the parents of children who are in a consensual relationship are putting rape and kidnapping charges on the boy.”

The social activists feel the authorities need to tackle such cases differently. “Relationships are developing earlier than before. The parents the boy having sex with the girl with rape, saying the girl’s consent is no. We are trying to work on this issue and feel authorities should not see such cases as rape only,” said Shah. She added that there has been definite increase in reporting of such cases and violence is increasing.

Number of rape cases against women have increased from 4,189 in 2016, to 4,356 in 2017. Also kidnapping and abduction cases have risen. 6,169 cases of kidnapping were reported in 2016, and 7,113 were reported in 2017. Cases of molestation too have increased by almost 1,000. 11,396 cases were reported in 2016 and 12,238 cases were reported in 2017.

WOMEN AND CHILDREN aren’t safe IN MAHARASHTRA?

There were a total of 31,275 offences of crime against women in 2016, the number rose to 32,100 in 2017.

While 4,189 rape offences were reported in 2016, the number rose to 4,356 in 2017.

Also, cases of kidnapping and abduction increased from 6,169 in 2016 to 7,113 in 2017. Molestation cases rose from 11,396 in 2016 to 12,238 last year.

The survey said while a total of 3,331 cases were registered for crimes against children in 2016, the number shot up to 4109 in 2017.

While there were 132 cases of murder in which children were victims in 2016, the number increased to 147 in 2017. The number of child rapes rose from 2086 in 2016 to 2305 in 2017.

Also, while 8,016 offences were lodged for kidnapping and abduction of children in 2016, the number rose to 8,850 in 2017, it said.

It’s not all bad news

Cases of sexual harassment, however, saw a dip, from 924 in 2016 to 864 in 2017. Instances of immoral trafficking also went down, from 303 in 2016 to 281 in 2017.

Cases of dowry deaths, too, dropped, from 248 in 2016 to 234 in 2017.