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According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), one in every four girls and one in every seven boys in the world are sexually abused. But Lois J.
Engelbrecht, a researcher working on the problems of child sexual abuse, quotes studies showing that over 50 per cent of children in India are sexually abused, a rate that is higher than in any other country.
Mumbai-based journalist-writer Pinki Virani, for the first time openly came out with facts and figures on sexual child abuse in the year 2000 in her book Bitter Chocolate and broke silence to narrate her own experience of abuse by an extended family member. Her work has also been staged as plays by theatre personality Lushin Dubey. "Two institutions play a very important role in a
Childs life when it comes to sexual abuse: there is protection and there is prosecution. Protection is the job of the parent. Prosecution is the job of the state," Virani said in her book.
A girl abused in her childhood by her own family member
kept the secret to herself out of fear and shame and it was much later that she recalled the frightful incidents to her boarding school friends. But she was in for a greater surprise: Most of her friends had been victims of some form of sexual abuse during their childhood and had kept it under the wraps, confiding only to their
mothers during times of crisis. Sadly, the mothers did all they could to avert the danger but
precious little to bring the incidents out in the open.
Child, Sex, Tourism
India has become one of the hottest child sex tourism
destination . A report, Trafficking in Women and Children in India, sponsored
by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), highlights this,
mentioning not just Goa, which since the 1990s has uncovered rackets
by Freddy Peats and Helmut Brinkmann, but also Alleppy and Ernakulam
districts of Kerala, where houseboat tourism has lately seen a boom.
But the reports finding tell only part of story. " The
attention paedophiles are paying to India is preposterous,"
says Rakesh Gupta, a child rights activists. "They are
mentioning the Golden Triangle- Delhi, Agra aand Jaipur - in their
anonymous blog posts."
In Kerala, "sex on the water" is the latest rage for
paedophiles. Most paedophiles heading for Kerala start in Delhi,
where police estimates the existence of 10 cartels specialising in
child sex tourism. "With nearly a lakh homeless children in
Capital, it's easy for paedophiles to come and expolit them"
says Dr Rajat Mitra, who heads Swanchetan, an NGO specialising rape
trauma. In Mumbai, nearly 70,000 minors are abused yearly,
estimates Kusumbar Choudhury of Save the Children India.
Child Abuse Statistics
There are 5,00,000 children in prostitution, in India. More than 3 children die a day in the USA. Of the total number of children who were killed in the USA, from 1976-1997, 54 percent were killed by a parent, 15 percent were killed by strangers or unknown persons. There are over 15 million children in bonded labour, in India today. Twice as many girls than boys engaged in child
labour.
63% of girls in Delhi, have experienced child sexual abuse at the hands of a family member (Sakshi, 1997).
In a study of a 1000 girls from 5 different states in India, (Rahi, 1997), 50% of the girls said that they had been abused when under 12 years of age, 35% had been abused between the ages of 12- 16 years of age. The average sex offender has 76 victims. (American data.) There are at least 18 million children living on the streets in India. In a number of joint studies conducted by UNICEF and the Ministry of Labour, 75% of the children reported treatment by staff as bad and 91.7% reported provisions of necessities as bad, Bangalore. In Mumbai 75.4 % reported bad treatment by staff and 53.2 reported that provisions were poor.
One million children are trafficked into prostitution, in Asia every year.
Dr. Preethi Menon says: "Sexual abuse has immediate as well as long-term effects on the child, from emotional and
behavioral problems to abnormal sexual behavior and psychiatric disorders. Suicidal tendencies and drug abuse are common long-term effects."
Hazy Laws
In India, there are no laws that cover child abuse in all its dimensions.
Lawyer IB Singh, however, feels the problem is not with the laws but
with the law enforcing agencies. "The process is long drawn and
conviction rate negligible." he says. While law takes its course,
the child suffers four times over - when the act is committed, while
narrating the incident, during medical examination and then, in
court.
With boys, only proven sodomy is punishable offence- but other than that,
there is no clear definition of sexual abuse. The picture gets hazier
when the act is committed by a child against a child. In that case,
the Juvenile Justice Act comes into force, and law is not clear to
whom the victim reports.
Prevention:
Prevention can be focused at three levels. At the primary level, the focus can be on removing the causes, strengthening the child's competence to
recognize and react, increasing parental awareness, strengthening social vigilance, and bringing in effective and punitive penal policy. At the secondary level, the emphasis should be on early detection, quick intervention and provision of a supportive environment in schools and families. Tertiary intervention should involve coordination among the police, courts,
counselors, doctors and social workers.
A national level study on child abuse is being conducted to assess the extent and magnitude of the problem in India. The study will gauge the different forms of abuse and examine the profile of the abused and exploited children and their relationship with the perpetrator, according to official sources here. The issue of child abuse, which has remained neglected so far, has been entrusted by the Ministry of Women and Child Development to Prayas, a
non- government organisation (NGO) working on children's issues.
Prayas, which is conducting the year-long study starting September 2005, will recommend measures and strategies for policy, legislations and programme development in this regard, the sources said. Based on the findings, the government will draw up interventions to address the problem. In view of the expertise and experience of Prayas in the field, the NGO, on behalf of the ministry, had
organised on October 28-29 a workshop to train trainers or field officers who will undertake the nationwide study. The effort is being funded by Save the Children and UNICEF.
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