India to join hands with international agencies to combat child porn

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The Ministry of Women and Child Development has decided to join hands with international agencies to strengthen mechanism for online lodging of cybercrime complaints against child sexual abuse materials.

The step has been taken by the Maneka Gandhi-led ministry to curb cybercrime against women and children, particularly the elimination of online child sexual abuse material, rape imagery and other offensive material, according to a report in The Times of India.

The information was shared by her saying it was “important to sign MoUs with agencies and alliances working to combat child sexual abuse material and pornography internationally.” The ministry has already talked to the Ministry of Home Affairs with regard to it. The MHA has agreed to work in direction of finalizing these tie-ups and CBI will be the pivotal agency in framing MoUs with the international agencies, said Gandhi.

The WCD ministry is also talking to social media giants to work in direction of blocking of offensive material online. The WCD minister has asked micro-blogging site Twitter to prepare a list of words that are being used in tweets and falls in the category of offensive.

The ministry has also proposed to fund training for creating experts who would work in the Home Ministry's special anti-child pornography unit.

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It was also decided during the round table discussion that efforts in the direction of bringing changes required in the legal framework, training and building capacities of police personnel and judiciary and increasing awareness among public would be redoubled.

The minister further shared the efforts done by her ministry towards protection of women and children including a first-of-its-kind online reporting and complaint management system for cases of sexual harassment at workplace, which was launched in 2017. Around 191 complaints were registered on the portal and the ministry took action on them, she said.