The Hyderabad City Police has adopted a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to deal with the crimes of commercial sexual exploitation of children. The document was released at an event held in the city on Saturday. In the past year, the city police has increased its attention towards crimes against children and improved its preparedness to deal with crimes like trafficking of children for the sex trade and child pornography.
Last year, the Hyderabad police participated in a two-day workshop, called Choke The Demand, for police officers from across the city to understand the nature of such crimes, how to prevent them and how to effectively prosecute offenders, especially customers who drive the demand for such crimes. Over the past few months, after elaborate consultations with experts and officers of the police department, the new SOP was prepared by the office of Addl CP Shikha Goel for the officers to deal with crimes of commercial sexual exploitation of children. Kolkata based consultancy firm Changemantras was instrumental in preparing the document.
The SOP will enable officers to crackdown on such crimes against children and prosecute all offenders, including customers. It was released by several dignitaries including Telangana Chief Secretary S K Joshi, state police DGP Mahender Reddy, Hyderabad police commissioner Anjani Kumar, Shikha Goel and several other senior police officers a day ahead of the She Teams Run that was being organised by the police.
The run, titled ‘V R 1’, will be the first event under the banner V R 1, a unique initiative set up by the Bharosa and SHE Teams, who have been actively hosting programmes and events for women’s safety and dignity in the city.
According to the Bharosa and SHE Teams, V R 1 is an effort to get maximum people from all walks of life, especially students, professionals and children, to participate in the run so as to inculcate the habit of looking at each other with respect and make Hyderabad one of the safest cities in the world.
SHE Teams was introduced in the state in 2014 with a motto to provide safety and security to women and to curb crimes against women. Bharosa is an integrated support centre for women and children that was established by the city police in 2016.