Dating apps have become a main support of modern relationships. While the advantages and disadvantages of the online encounter of people and the selection of partners are increasingly discussed and checked with the help of an algorithm, a facet is a facet that requires immediate consideration of the political consideration that associated with these apps. Change of identity, harassment, data protection concerns and financial fraud can exist as part of the online dating. Of these security concerns, minors who are not overlooked are a blatant problem that does not access such apps with an age, which makes them susceptible to predators and different forms of abuse.
Such a case took place in Kerala’s Kasargod. The Kerala police have booked sixteen people So far in connection with a case of sexual attacks by children. In 2023, a then fourteen boy created an account in the Grindr dating app. Several adult men became friends with the boy and attacked him over two years. So far, fifteen FIR have been registered in several districts of the state. Twelve of the defendants were arrested. The incident came to light when the child’s mother saw a man in her house who saw her. Then registered a police complaint.
Mandatory age review at dating apps
The case shows the need for a mandatory age check in dating apps. Like all other dating apps, grindr requires their own age. While these apps are only intended for users at the age of eighteen, there are no systems to check whether users have declared their correct age. This means that children can incorporate their age wrong and create profiles for these apps.
Source: Fii
Children who access Dating apps have driven a world of online and offline. With dating apps with their predominantly adult user base, children are very likely to do predators and are confronted with various forms of financial, emotional, physical and sexual abuse. It is therefore an urgent need that children cannot access those -independent services that must be addressed by adequate legal and political interventions.
Dating apps that work in Great Britain, including grindrhave started the process of Check the age of the user Because a new law prescribes it. In order for these apps to continue to work in the country, you must check the self -declared age of each user. In order to ensure the security of children, India requires similar legal provisions that make the age review into a mandatory legal requirement for the dating of apps in the country.
Age -based restrictions on the Internet are often ineffective because they all work on a self -declaration model. While the age of each user can be time-consuming and expensive, the age of the users on the Internet, even outside of dating apps, cannot be checked.
While the age of each user can be time-consuming and expensive, the age of the users on the Internet, even outside of dating apps, cannot be checked.
Without a robust age check that goes beyond self -declarations, children are exposed to endless streams of age -independent and harmful content. With dating apps, the risk is not only psychological and due to development. Dating apps for predators become a simple way to make children victims by making access easier and using a legitimate way that do not increase red flags. In addition, dating apps are popular and clearly visible, which makes it more likely that children have knowledge of them and, in contrast to dark websites, would access them. While the revision of age verification systems for the protection of children on the Internet is of essential importance, this applies to the dating of apps.
Expansion of provisions in connection with sexual violence in the law
In addition to the measures for age review, it is urgently needed to expand the provisions in connection with sexual violence in Indian law. In this case, the protection of children from sex crimes (Pocso) from 2012, since the victim is a minor, is used to charges and persecute the perpetrators. While Pocso is gender -neutral, provisions that relate to adults in Indian law regarding sexual violence against adults are gender -neutral.
Source: Fii
After the Indian Criminal Code (IPC) was replaced by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) in 2024, there are no provisions to address sexual violence against adults that are exposed to abuse by perpetrators of the same gender. The law also does not recognize sexual violence against men or transgender persons. Rape laws in India only recognize cases in which CIS-Women sacrifices and CIS-Men are perpetrators.
However, Section 377 of the IPC recognized sexual violence in which the victim and perpetrator were same -sex. After the Supreme Court in Navtej Johhar was read against Union of India, provisions in the section in which mutual gender was criminalized among same -sex partners were removed, but the section was still not used for law enforcement. Essentially, it was a determination for combating cases of sexual violence in which the victim and perpetrator were same -sex.
Although it is important to understand that legislation on sexual violence is gender -specific in order to minimize the risk that these laws are misused to silence victims. If laws with sexual violence pursue a blanket gender -neutral approach, women who submit cases to sexual violence against men can submit retribution measures against sexual violence against them. This is often why Feminist activists resist gender -neutral rape laws and Recommend to add new provisions in the law to tackle gaps instead of having a single gender -neutral rape law.
If laws with sexual violence pursue a blanket gender -neutral approach, women who submit cases to sexual violence against men can submit retribution measures against sexual violence against them.
However, the current approach, which is pursued in the BNS, leaves many without legal provisions to protect them from abuse. Especially queer people whose marginalization makes them more exposed to sexual violence. The combating of these legislative gaps then becomes crucial not only to ensure the protection of strange people from sexual violence, but also to ensure that the same protection of the law is expanded to all uniformly.
Sensitization of institutions
However, the creation of legal provisions does not help, since institutional homophobia and prejudices make reporting for queer people. Police and judicial awareness and surveillance mechanisms to combat institutional homophobia must be determined to ensure that legal provisions are not only available on paper, but are transferred to practice.
Source: Fii
While he heard a case of sexual violence after a grindr date in 2024, the Madras High Court was noted This grindr was used to commit crimes. He added that the app was “illegal”, not because of strange people, but because it only served a cocky and sexual interest of the parties. He continued that the app was prohibited.
This plays directly into the homophobic stereotype that queer people are hypersexual and sexual deviations, which they then earn less in the institutional and social and social ideas of sexual violence. When police and court staff operate from a place of homophobia, they will accidentally minimize and reject cases of sexual violence against queer victims.
Reporting and subsequent investigations and court proceedings can also assume queer people who can increase the risk of family or community violence against them. In addition, social homophobia can also be an obstacle. Even in the case of Kerala, in which the child was involved, many on social media have the child responsible for registering with a dating app, especially one that was aimed at gay men. Such victim procurement is based on homophobia and can not only discourage reporting, but also bear numerous social costs for victims and their families. Therefore, robust political framework conditions that ensure the privacy of the victims in the investigative and judicial processes are of crucial importance.
The Kerala case serves as a call to act and underlines the need to remedy legislative defects.
The Kerala case serves as a call to act and underlines the need to remedy legislative defects. In addition to the mandatory age review of the introduction of provisions to combat sexual violence against victims regardless of their gender and their sexual identity and the implementing sensitization, the directive for the treatment of peripheral questions that are requested with data, handling and sale in connection with the documentation for age review, is also of essential importance. These measures are crucial to ensure that children can continue to access online rooms safely, and to ensure that all gender and sexual minorities enjoy the same protection of the law.
Akshita Prasad is a writer whose work focuses primarily on feminism. social and institutional justice, Law and politics, politics and pop culture.
