India's Minister for Women and Child Development, Maneka Gandhi, has announced on Twitter that India has made it tougher for foreign sex offenders to enter the country.
In a series of tweets, the minister said that foreigners applying for Indian visa will have to declare a criminal record if any.
“It has now been decided that an appropriate questionnaire & a declaration will be incorporated in the visa application form which will have to be filled up by visa applicants/ foreign nationals,” tweeted Ms Gandhi.
Activists have blamed softer visa conditions as an easy target of for child sex offenders to enter India. There have been several cases in the recent past when foreign nationals abused Indian children.
The case of an Australian national Paul Dean made headlines earlier this year when a Visakhapatnam court convicted him in a 17-year-old case.
Seventy-five-year-old Dean used many aliases and impersonated as a priest and at times as a doctor and carried out many surgeries in leper colonies in Odisha.
He was first arrested in 2001 in Vishakhapatnam for sexually abusing children in his apartment. He was charged with sexually exploiting visually challenged, speech and hearing impaired orphans living in an orphanage. After his release on bail, he committed similar offences in a village in the neighbouring state of Odisha in eastern India.
John Allan Water was extradited from the US and produced in a court Tuesday for an alleged child sexual abuse case in Mumbai in 2001. Source: AAP
Hyderabad police recently arrested a US citizen, John Jones, for circulating child porn online.
In 2009, a Dutchman, William Heum was sentenced to 25 years of imprisonment for sexually abusing children at a child care facility in nearby Mamallapuram.
International organisations like End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT) had been pushing for changes in the visa processes of countries like India. Activists working for the cause has also proposed a central hub of information on child sex offenders.
New visa rules: Questions foreigners must answer
Paul Henry Dean Source: ABC Australia
*Have you ever been convicted by a court of law in any country?
*Have you ever been refused entry or deported by any country, including India?
*Have you ever been engaged in human trafficking/drug trafficking/child abuse/child abuse/crimes against women and financial frauds?
*Have you ever been engaged in cybercrime/terrorist activities/sabotage/espionage/genocide/political killing or other acts of violence?
*Have you ever by any means or medium expressed views that justify or glorify terrorist violence, or that may encourage others to terrorist acts or other serious criminal acts?
*Have you sought asylum (political or otherwise) in any country?
