What Do We Tell a Girl Who Asks "Was It Me?": POCSO, Known Offenders

Source: Original editorial ↗ The Indian Express

The Lift Line

“Women do not need a handbook that instructs them in avoiding violence. We need a handbook, as a society, to prevent violence.”

Why This Editorial Matters for Your Exam

Katyayani Sanjay Bhatia, an officer of the Indian Revenue Service (Income Tax), writes in The Indian Express of 4 October 2026 from personal experience about how girls learn early to manage the male gaze and to doubt themselves. Her peg is a Delhi High Court order of 22 September 2026 directing that a trial judge’s personal message to a seven-year-old survivor be delivered to her with her compensation, and NCRB data showing most child sexual assault comes from known men. It gives GS1 (society and women), GS2 (vulnerable sections, POCSO) and GS4 (empathy, institutional ethics) a single case study.

GS Paper 1: Role of women; social empowerment. GS Paper 2: Mechanisms, laws and institutions for the protection of vulnerable sections. GS Paper 4: Empathy and compassion towards the vulnerable; attitude.

Background and Context

Element	Detail
The case	A man the child called “uncle” was convicted of raping her in July 2023, when she was seven, and sentenced to life; the trial court awarded about Rs 10.5 lakh in compensation
The judge’s message	The Additional Sessions Judge wrote to the child, telling her the court had heard her plea that the man stay in jail until he grew old, and had answered it
Delhi High Court, 22 September 2026	A Division Bench of Justices Prathiba M. Singh and Dinesh Bhatt declined to suspend the sentence pending appeal, reproduced the message and directed the District Legal Services Authority to deliver it to the child with the compensation
The data	NCRB, Crime in India 2024: in cases under Sections 4 and 6 of POCSO, 1,492 of 44,126 involved an unknown or unidentified offender, the column reports

POCSO in brief. The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (in force 14 November 2012) defines a child as anyone under 18, is gender-neutral, and creates graded offences: penetrative sexual assault (Section 4), aggravated penetrative sexual assault (Section 6), sexual assault (8), aggravated sexual assault (10), sexual harassment (12) and use of a child for pornography (14). The 2019 amendment raised minimum sentences (20 years for penetrative assault on a child under 16) and allowed the death penalty for aggravated penetrative assault. Section 19 makes reporting mandatory; Section 28 creates Special Courts; Section 33(8) and Rule 9 of the POCSO Rules, 2020 provide compensation; Section 29 presumes guilt for certain offences once foundational facts are proved.

The Analysis

1. Infantilisation as disbelief. Relatives who insist the child “couldn’t have known” are not protecting her; they are protecting the adult. The writer’s question, whether a seven-year-old boy would be told the same, exposes a gendered lens.

2. The known offender. If roughly 97 per cent of penetrative assaults on children are by known men (our arithmetic from the column’s NCRB figures), then safety advice built around strangers, clothing and public transport misdirects both the child and the system.

3. The court as witness. The judge’s message did more than sentence: it acknowledged the wound and named the child’s courage. The writer, years after her own experience, felt “vicariously and personally” exonerated. Institutional empathy has real effects.

4. The cost of the handbook. Every girl compiles a private manual: what to wear, where to sit, how to go numb to a brushing palm. The burden is lifelong and falls on the wrong party.

5. From avoidance to prevention. The writer’s shift of frame, from a handbook for women to a handbook for society, is the policy point: accountability of adults and institutions, not vigilance by children.

Data and Institutions Vault

Prelims-grade facts:

The law:

• POCSO Act, 2012: in force 14 November 2012; a child is anyone under 18; the Act is gender-neutral.
• POCSO sections: 4 penetrative assault, 6 aggravated penetrative assault, 19 mandatory reporting, 28 Special Courts, 29 presumption of guilt.
• POCSO (Amendment) Act, 2019: minimum 20 years for penetrative assault on a child under 16; death penalty possible for aggravated penetrative assault.
• POCSO Rules, 2020, Rule 9: Special Court may order interim and final compensation, paid by the State through the Victim Compensation Fund.

The data:

• NCRB Crime in India 2024: in Sections 4 and 6 cases, 1,492 of 44,126 had an unknown offender (as cited by the writer).
• Delhi High Court, 22 September 2026: judge’s message to be delivered with compensation of about Rs 10.5 lakh.

Institutions:

• National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), 2007, under the CPCR Act 2005, monitors POCSO (Section 44).
• Juvenile Justice Act, 2015: Child Welfare Committees and District Child Protection Units; Mission Vatsalya funds child protection.

⚠️ Watch the trap: POCSO is gender-neutral: both victim and offender may be of any gender. The IPC/BNS rape provisions (BNS Section 63 onwards) are gender-specific as to the victim. POCSO prevails where a child is the victim, and courts apply whichever law prescribes the greater punishment (Section 42).

The Debate

For the writer’s view. The data settle the question of where danger lies; a protection regime built around strangers fails most children; disbelief of girls is itself a harm.

The other side. Personal safety education works, as the writer’s own instinct at seven showed; the two approaches are complements, not rivals, and under-resourced police and courts, not misdirected advice, are the main failure.

The balanced verdict. Teach children to recognise and report, and build the adult accountability that makes reporting worthwhile: mandatory reporting enforced, child-friendly procedures funded, and a public conversation that stops asking girls what they wore.

How to Think About This

Follow the base rate. When a policy responds to the vivid case (the stranger in the park) rather than the common one (the relative at home), it protects the few and fails the many. Ask of every protection scheme: whom does the data say it should target?

Diagram-in-Words

Takeaway Box

• Peg: Delhi High Court, 22 September 2026: a judge’s message to a child survivor delivered with compensation.
• Data: NCRB 2024, POCSO Sections 4 and 6: 1,492 unknown offenders in 44,126 cases.
• Law: POCSO 2012; Sections 4, 6, 19, 28, 29, 33(8); 2019 amendment; Rules 2020.
• Argument: stop writing handbooks for girls; write one for society.

Sources: The Indian Express, LiveLaw on the Delhi High Court order, NCRB

Source: What Do We Tell a Girl Who Asks "Was It Me?": POCSO, Known Offenders — Ujiyari.com | Free UPSC & State PCS Editorial Analysis

Key Arguments at a Glance

Katyayani Sanjay Bhatia argues that girls in India are taught from childhood to manage the male gaze and to doubt themselves, while the data show the danger comes overwhelmingly from men they know; the answer is not a handbook for girls on avoiding violence but a handbook for society on preventing it.

✓ Supporting

• Her own experience at seven, dismissed by relatives as a child who “couldn’t have known”, shows how girls are infantilised and disbelieved; a seven-year-old boy alleging an attack would not be told the same.
• A trial court judge wrote a personal message to a child survivor who had asked that the man she called “uncle” stay in jail until he grew old, and the Delhi High Court ordered it delivered with her compensation: the court acknowledged the wound and the child’s courage.
• NCRB’s Crime in India 2024 records that in cases under Sections 4 and 6 of the POCSO Act (penetrative and aggravated penetrative sexual assault) only 1,492 of 44,126 cases involved an unknown or unidentified offender; the harm comes from inside the circle of trust.
• Childhood trauma leads to insecure attachment, emotional dysregulation and relational difficulties in adulthood; the burden of a lifelong “handbook” of precautions falls on the girl, and she ends up asking whether it was her clothes, her body, herself.

⚠ Counter

Safety education for children is not infantilisation: “good touch, bad touch” teaching and the child’s instinct to shout were what protected the writer at seven. A protection system needs both, children who can recognise and report, and adults and institutions who believe them and act.

→ Way Forward

The writer’s conclusion is that women do not need a handbook on avoiding violence; society needs one on preventing it. Ujiyari’s synthesis: enforce POCSO’s mandatory reporting and child-friendly procedures, fund the Juvenile Justice and child protection machinery, build family and community programmes that confront the known-offender reality, and shift the language of safety advice from the girl’s conduct to the adult’s responsibility.