Victimization of Children in the Cyber Space: A Case Study in India

In the 21^st century, Information and Communication technology plays a huge role in the lives of every human being irrespective of age group. During the pandemic, ICTs proved to be a boon, enabling us to carry on work without the anticipated disruption. However, the constant use of ICTs in our lives has also brought about certain risk factors. The frequent use of internet especially in children has introduced them to new threats in the cyber space. Being difficult to detect, cyber crimes often look for easy targets, children being one of them. Cyberbullying, Online harassment, Child sexual exploitation are some of the incidents that a child may face online. Cyber crimes have a detrimental impact on the psychology of children often affecting their personality and threatening their lives. The following study evaluates the trend of cyber crimes against children and tries to assess the effectiveness of legislative measures in combating victimization of children in cyberspace in India.