Aasha, a central pedophile registry
Keywords:
Child Sex Abuse, Rape, Hackathon, Security
Winner:
Hyderabad Urban Hackathon, XI Metropolis World Congress
Duration:
September - October, 2014
Application Description
In mid-2014, a six-year-old girl was allegedly raped by the school staff in a private school in east Bangalore. The crime sparked days of protests and forced the government to introduce tougher anti-rape laws, including the death penalty. I started researching about the incident and the facts indicated that there had been a 336% increase in such crimes in the last decade with 48 thousand child rape cases registered from 2001-11. The biggest challenge in curbing this menace is that child sex offenders have 35-50% re-offence rate. Meanwhile, I had got an opportunity to participate in Urban Hackathon at XI Metropolis World Congress sponsored by Government of India, to develop applications for smart and safer cities. I, along with my friend Mr. Raghu Kanchustambham, CEO of ConceptWaves, decided to work on eradicating child sexual abuse, which had become a critical issue in the country at that time. Our team had built an application called ‘Aasha’, a central pedophile registry integrated with the platform for Aadhaar Number, unique to every citizen in the country. The app aimed to help schools and educational institutions, do thorough background checks before hiring teachers and staff members, thus reducing the chance of the crime by repeat offenders. ‘Aasha’ stood the winner amongst 250 other applications and received an award from Dr. R.K. Pachauri, under whose leadership the IPCC had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Statistics
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India’s National Crime Records Bureau says one rape was reported in India every 21 minutes last year.
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336% increase in child rape cases last decade; 48,338 child rape cases between 2001-11.
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8,541 minors raped in India in 2012: NCRB.
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Offenders who molest young children have 35-50% re-offence rate.
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Compared to non-sex offenders released from State prisons, released sex offenders were 4 times more likely to be rearrested for a sex crime.
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An offender, if caught in the act, is likely to move to a new setting where he can start his activities afresh.
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Aasha, central database of sex offenders at the State level should considerably protect young children from being abused at schools & other places where children visit.
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Organizations can search AASHA for a background check before recruiting new staff.
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All Schools to report Incidents in the AASHA.
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Incidents in AASHA will be recorded against AADHAR number of the staff.
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Incidents recorded In AASHA will be classified as: (a).Reported (but not proven), (b).Action Taken (Staff suspended, Written warning given), (c).FIR filed against staff Member.
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Allow parents to initiate a request to school to report a staff member: School may or may not honor that request, but such parents requests will be tracked and reviewed when schools get audited periodically.
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Auditing schools periodically on compliance is critical: Audit report of the school can be published on the AASHA portal for parents to publicly view.
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