After you report.

The POCSO Act is India’s law against the sexual abuse of children, and the POCSO Rules 2020 set out how it works. A support person keeps what they learn private, and your family does not pay them. India’s Supreme Court has said the child has a legal right to a support person. Many families are never offered one. A 2025 review by Maharashtra’s child rights commission and Majlis found a support person named in fewer than 1 in 10 cases in 2021 and 2022. So ask on the first day, in writing, and ask again.

Write to the Child Welfare Committee in your district, or give it to the police to pass on. Keep a signed copy, or a photo of it, with the date you handed it in. You can copy the request below and fill in the gaps, including the number of the FIR, the First Information Report the police registered. Use the child’s initials, never their full name.

Once one is named, ask for their name and phone number, and ask them to meet the child.

If no one is named within a week, ask again in writing and keep a copy. Until then, ask the district child protection team (the District Child Protection Unit, DCPU) or a free legal aid lawyer to help you, and remember the police must keep you updated in any case.

An organisation that works on child rights can also be your support person, if the committee appoints it. Your family may also take help from any person or group you choose, though the government pays only a support person the committee names.

Any police station must record the report, even if the abuse happened somewhere else. The case may be handled by the police unit for children (the Special Juvenile Police Unit, SJPU), or any police station.

A report made at another station is called a Zero FIR. That station must still arrange the medical and tell the committee within 24 hours. It then sends the case to the police where the abuse happened, who handle the rest. They may ask the child to travel there. Ask them in writing to arrange the medical, the Magistrate’s record and the committee hearing near your home. Not every station agrees. If the child must travel, ask the committee for travel money under Rule 8 of the POCSO Rules 2020, and ask that it cover the adult who goes with the child. Keep every ticket.

At the police station. Ask for the free FIR copy, the officers’ names and phone numbers, and Form-A, the list of the child’s rights. After that, the police must keep you updated about any arrest, the applications filed and the court dates.

At the hospital. Any hospital, government or private, must treat the child free, and cannot ask for an FIR or police papers first. A parent or a person the child trusts can stay with the child during the examination and the statement. A girl is examined by a woman doctor, and you can insist on this. The child, or you for a young child, can say no to any part of the examination. Saying no does not stop treatment.

Go as soon as you can. The law says the examination should be done within 24 hours of the police learning of the offence, and some evidence fades within days. Ask the police not to wait for the next morning. If anything about the examination worries you, ask the doctor to explain each part first. You can still say no.

A private hospital may send you to a government hospital for the examination, but it must still treat the child first. A normal examination does not mean nothing happened. If you have not been yet, read before the hospital.

The child’s account. The child must never be brought near the accused, and must never be kept at a police station at night. You can ask for the statement to be recorded on video.

The child may have to tell a few people: the police, the doctor, a Magistrate and perhaps the committee. Each step is there to protect the child. You can tell the child so: These people are here to keep you safe.

Up to 20 weeks, one doctor’s opinion is enough. From 20 to 24 weeks, two doctors must agree. It is done by a registered doctor, in a government hospital or an approved centre. For a girl under 18, her guardian must agree in writing. The Supreme Court has said that when she and her family disagree, the court must treat her own view as an important factor.

After 24 weeks, the law allows it without a court in two cases: when her life is in danger, or when a Medical Board finds a serious problem with the foetus. In other cases, the family has to ask the High Court for permission. Courts have allowed this for some girls and refused it for others. A free legal aid lawyer can file the request. Call 15100, the national legal aid helpline, or ask the hospital or the support person to start the same day.

If the case is already reported, the pregnancy becomes part of it, and the police and court must keep the girl’s name private. If it has not been reported, the doctor must tell the police. In 2022 the Supreme Court said that where the sex was not forced, the doctor can leave the girl’s name out of that report if she and her guardian ask.

The decision is the girl’s and her guardian’s, made with the doctors. No one should push her either way. If the pregnancy is ended, ask the doctor and the police to keep a sample for a DNA test. If she continues the pregnancy, ask the committee and the support person what care she can get. Either way, the committee must make sure she can keep studying. Read how to look after the child.

The police should finish the investigation within two months, and must tell you how it is going within 90 days.

When the investigation ends, the police file their report in court. Once that report is filed, the court must give your family a copy of the documents if you have a lawyer on the case. A free legal aid lawyer can ask for it. Keep every paper you are given in one folder, with the FIR copy on top.

For serious charges, meaning charges that carry seven years or more, the court can order, and usually does, that the accused must not threaten or pressure anyone. Ask the prosecutor to seek this. In any case the court may add conditions, such as staying away from the child. At the hearing, you or your lawyer can tell the court what the child fears.

The police must also tell you whether the accused is in custody, on bail or released. If they come near the child or break a condition, tell the police and the Special Public Prosecutor in writing, and tell the support person, because the court can cancel bail.

Threatening someone to change their evidence is a serious offence in its own right. If the accused or their family does this, ask the police to register an FIR, not only a non-cognizable report (NC). Give the FIR copy to the prosecutor for a bail cancellation application. Courts do not always cancel bail the first time. Keep a dated record of every incident, and send each one in writing.

The Special Public Prosecutor, the government lawyer on the case, presents it. If your family has its own lawyer, that lawyer works under the prosecutor’s direction.

The law protects the child in court.

• No aggressive questions, and no attack on the child’s character.
• No calling the child back to court again and again.
• No naming the child, family, school or neighbourhood.
• An interpreter or special educator if the child needs one.

Before the hearing day, ask the prosecutor for a screen or a video link, and for a separate place where the child can wait.

Ask the prosecutor to meet the child before that day and explain the room. Years may have passed, and forgetting some details is normal. Ask whether the child can read their earlier statement before the day. If the child would be more at ease with a woman prosecutor, ask for one.

If the accused is under 18, the case goes to the Juvenile Justice Board instead. If the accused was 16 or 17 and the offence carries at least seven years in prison, the Board first assesses them, and may then send the case on to the Children’s Court. Lawyers in Mumbai say the Board often has no screen and no separate place to wait. So ask in writing, before each date, for a screen, a separate waiting place and the support person beside the child. Ask for copies of the bail order and the final order.

Waiting is hard on a family. These steps can help.

• Ask the prosecutor to remind the court of the targets in the law.
• Ask for interim compensation.
• Keep the support person until the trial ends.
• Use a free legal aid lawyer if you want your own.
• If the accused stops coming to court, ask the prosecutor to seek a warrant.
• If the case still does not move, your lawyer can write to the Principal District and Sessions Judge.

Interpreters and special educators are paid by the government too. The committee can also recommend emergency help with food, clothes and travel, and that help should be paid within a week of its recommendation.

Lawyers in Maharashtra say many committees and district offices do not yet know this rule. So name it: Rule 8 of the POCSO Rules 2020. Ask for the order in writing, with a copy for the District Legal Services Authority (DLSA).

Interim compensation is paid while the case goes on, but it often takes months to arrive. The state must pay final compensation within 30 days of receiving the order, though in practice it is often late.

Each state also has its own victim compensation scheme, run through the DLSA. You can apply to the DLSA yourself, or ask the police whether they have sent your application. Ask the DLSA what has happened to it, and keep the reply. Open a bank account in the child’s name early, because the money is usually paid into it.

Some children qualify for Rs 4,000 a month under the government’s Mission Vatsalya sponsorship. Ask the district child protection team (DCPU) or the committee whether the child qualifies.

If the accused is your husband, your partner or another man in your family who lives with you, or one of their relatives, you may be protected under the Domestic Violence Act. If he or his family threaten you, cut off money or try to put you out of the home, a Magistrate can order him to stay away, let you stay in the home, and pay your costs. A free legal aid lawyer or the Protection Officer can help you apply.

Separately, if he is your husband or the children’s father and has an income or property, a Magistrate can order him to pay monthly support.

None of this is quick or certain, and none of it replaces a wage.

The police bring the child before the committee within 24 hours, and it must weigh what the child wants. If the person does not live with the child, the police take the child to the committee if they find the child needs care and protection, for example if no one at home can keep them safe.

A placement may be in a children’s home or shelter. The committee must tell you and the child if it is thinking about this.

The committee cannot remove the accused from the house. That comes from arrest, bail conditions, or a residence order under the Domestic Violence Act, which is explained in who pays for what.

If you are not safe either, call 181, the Women Helpline.

Relatives may press you to settle, or to help the accused get out. No one can make you drop the case, and no one can buy it off. Once it is reported, the family cannot settle or withdraw a POCSO case. India’s Supreme Court has held that courts cannot close it because the family and the accused have made a compromise. If anyone offers money or asks you to withdraw or change the child’s statement, write down who and when, and tell the Special Public Prosecutor and the support person.

The pressure can last for years, and it often grows just before the child gives evidence. Some families face police cases filed against them to push them to withdraw. Do not sign any paper to withdraw. It does not end a POCSO case, and it can be used to weaken the child’s evidence. Tell the prosecutor and the support person about any such case or paper at once.

If the child goes back on what they said in court, the case does not end on that alone. The court can still weigh other evidence, such as what the doctor found. Pressure is often the reason a child goes back on their word. Do not blame the child for it.

You can read about the first night, and about when the family says keep it at home.

There are two small differences. The rule that a woman doctor examines the child applies to girls; a boy can still have a parent or trusted person with him. For a girl, the law says a Magistrate must record her account as soon as the police know of the offence; for a boy, the police usually take him to a Magistrate too. No one may publish anything that identifies any child. You can read why the law already counts him.

Counselling can start now. It is one of the child’s rights from the first days, listed in Form-A. Ask the committee, the support person or the hospital where to find it.

Look after yourself as well. Tele-MANAS 14416 is the government’s free mental health helpline, day or night. Call it for your own distress. It is not a place to report. You can also read what the first answer does.

Some of the realities on this page come from the casework of Majlis, a Mumbai legal aid organisation, and from a 2025 review of POCSO cases in Maharashtra.