Sexual abuse is an activity that involves or exploits children in different sexual activities either for the self-pleasure or due to profit motives. Engaging sex with the child, exposing the genitals of self in front of the child, touching the genitals of the child, or pressurizing the child to expose their genitals without touching it, showing porn sites or videos to the child or using the child to make porn videos. The person who sexually abuses the child is called molester/sexual abuser.

Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO Act) 2012 was introduced in order to prevent children who are less than 18 years of age from any kind of sexual abuse and harassment. For adult women, the Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code helps to protect them against any form of sexual harassment. In order to gain more clarity about it, the following examples and instances are given which depicts the different acts of as sexual harassment.

  • Touching or groping the breasts, lips, butts, vagina or penis
  • Showing sexual or obscene pictures, cartoons, videos, posters or sexual objects relating to nudity, kissing or the act of sex
  • Using or writing derogatory comments, questions, and jokes of sexual nature
  • Display of their own sexual parts such as penis or masturbating (rubbing the penis) in public
  • Commenting or singing filthy songs about the physical body using sexual anecdote
  • Talking about their sexual experiences unnecessarily
  • Requesting for sexual favors in exchange for something
  • Stalking a person, knowingly or unknowingly
  • Watching the images or videos of the women engaged in their private act or recording and sharing them
  • Morphing the picture of a girl with another one with the intention of defaming

The POCSO act also states that it becomes a legal duty of the person in India to report any sexual offense that came to their knowledge. If the person fails to do so, he or she may be punished with a six months imprisonment and/or fine.  Hence, it is necessary to report any such incidents to the concerned authorities. With this, it is possible to make sure the incident does not repeat either with you or other persons.

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