7 months ago
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Chief Justice of India (CJI) B R Gavai connected Saturday (October 11, 2025) flagged the vulnerability of miss children successful the integer epoch owed to online harassment, cyberbullying and integer stalking arsenic good arsenic the misuse of idiosyncratic information and deepfake imagery, and called for the enactment of specialised statutes and grooming of instrumentality enforcers and determination makers.
The CJI voiced his interest portion speaking astatine the National Annual Stakeholders Consultation connected “Safeguarding the Girl Child: Towards a Safer and Enabling Environment for Her successful India”, organised nether the aegis of the Juvenile Justice Committee (JJC) of the Supreme Court, successful relation with UNICEF India.
He said, “Despite law and ineligible guarantees, galore girls crossed the state proceed to beryllium tragically denied their cardinal rights and adjacent basal necessities for endurance and this vulnerability exposes them to disproportionately precocious risks of sexual abuse, exploitation and harmful practices, specified arsenic pistillate genital mutilation, malnutrition, sex-selective abortions, trafficking and kid matrimony against their will.”
"To unafraid her information is not simply to support her body, but to escaped her spirit. To make a nine wherever she tin clasp her caput precocious successful dignity and wherever her aspirations are nourished by acquisition and equality.... We indispensable face and flooded the deep-rooted patriarchal customs that proceed to contradict girls their rightful place," the CJI said.
Recalling Rabindranath Tagore’s poem, “Where the Mind is Without Fear”, Justice Gavai said it captures the precise essence of what is sought to beryllium achieved successful safeguarding the miss child.
“That imaginativeness remains incomplete truthful agelong arsenic immoderate miss successful our state lives successful fearfulness — fearfulness of violence, of discrimination, oregon of being denied the accidental to larn and to dream,” helium said, adding, “Only erstwhile each miss kid grows successful an situation of state and respect tin it beryllium said with condemnation that the state has awakened into that ‘heaven of freedom’ of which Tagore truthful beautifully spoke.”
Calling for a deeper introspection of the social, economical and taste barriers that proceed to impede girls’ lives, the CJI, successful the beingness of Union Minister for Women and Child Development Annapurna Devi and Cynthia McCaffrey, the state typical for UNICEF India, said, “The threats faced by young girls are nary longer confined to carnal spaces, they widen into the immense and often unregulated integer world.”
"Furthermore, successful today's technological era, wherever innovation defines progress, it is important to recognise that technology, though empowering, also brings caller vulnerabilities, particularly for the miss child," helium said, adding, "From online harassment, cyberbullying and integer stalking to the misuse of idiosyncratic information and deepfake imagery, the challenges person evolved successful some standard and sophistication."
Emphasising the request for specialised training, the CJI said that institutions, argumentation frameworks and enforcement authorities indispensable beryllium attuned to the realities of the times. "Training programmes for constabulary officers, educators wellness professionals and section administrators should consequently incorporated a delicate approach, equipping them to respond with empathy, nuance and contextual understanding," helium said.
The CJI further pointed retired that the laws addressing online intersexual exploitation, integer trafficking and cyber harassment indispensable beryllium paired with effectual enforcement, acquisition and consciousness initiatives.
“Protecting the miss kid indispensable go a halfway precedence of integer governance, ensuring that technological advancement is accompanied by ethical safeguards,” helium stressed. “In a integer future, exertion indispensable service arsenic a instrumentality for liberation alternatively than exploitation.”
"Safeguarding the miss kid contiguous means securing her aboriginal successful classrooms, workplaces and connected each surface she encounters," helium said, addressing the programme that was attended by respective Supreme Court and High Court Judges, kid rights activists, lawyers and others connected the premises of the apex court.
Justice B V Nagarathna, the chairperson of the JJC of the apex court, said, “A young miss successful India tin beryllium said to beryllium a genuinely adjacent national lone erstwhile she tin freely aspire to bash thing that her antheral counterpart does and person the aforesaid prime of enactment and resources to bash so, facing nary barriers circumstantial to her due to the fact that of her gender.”
"Put differently, the likelihood of her being calved astatine all, having entree to the close nutrition, care, acquisition and worldly resources, a unafraid and harmless environment, processing a chiseled consciousness of aforesaid and being capable to execute immoderate she sets her caput to person to beryllium equivalent to that of a lad kid calved successful this country. She should not simply past but actively thrive," she said.
Justice J B Pardiwala, a subordinate of the JJC, said, “Protecting the miss kid means ensuring that each miss has the close to live, larn and turn with equality, escaped from harm, favoritism and violence, specified arsenic pistillate foeticide and kid marriage.”
"It involves providing adjacent entree to education, healthcare and resources, promoting her worth successful families and society, and empowering her to marque informed choices and scope her afloat imaginable arsenic a respected idiosyncratic and contributing subordinate of the community," helium said.
Justice Pardiwala introduced a handbook connected “Child Rights and the Law”, prepared by the Centre for Research and Planning of the apex tribunal nether the guidance of the JJC.
