Ashish Kaul
“In the dead of the night I would hop across to Ravi’s (name changed) room in our chawl and limp back in pain. I was 12 years old and my Mother was deserted by my father. Just because Ravi offered me help to save my brother, he convinced me into being a toy. I used to cry but no one heard my screams, I would bleed and cry myself to sleep. Eventually, it all became a routine. By the time I realized I was being used as a sex slave I was in advanced stages of breast cancer.” Janet D’souza (name changed) 24 died a painful death in a Mumbai hospital without ever realizing that she had rights. Janet didn’t know that Ravi, a lawyer, couldn’t have used her body for a legal service to Janet’s family. She didn’t even get to realize that she was a human being; her cries never got on facebook and twitter remained silent. Janet died without learning to be a girl, she died without growing up dancing to the fairy tales. Janet did not die because of cancer or sexual abuse as a child but due to ignorance; she didn’t know what to do.
13 year old Nazia (name changed) of Delhi, is not much different from Janet. Her words weren’t coherent, yet I felt a chill down my spine. “My name…oh, what’s it to you? My mother and father are missing. When I’m hungry, I get food. You want some? I’ll kill him, It hurts me so much. He’s scarred me for life”. Nazia’s every word made me turn my stomach. Here was a 13 year old child that had lost her memory as a result of repeated endless rapes and abandoned by her parents. She was rescued by an Earth Saviours, a Delhi based NGO who runs a Rehab centre. I was dumbfounded, had never imagined that resurgent India that is busy turning the global wheel doesn’t even have the stomach to stand up for their own girl child. For a while I wondered if at all her memory came back; could we take her back to a place that is safe for a girl child? Is the society really with these girls, empathizing with their hardships at such a tender age, or is it all just a sham?
Statistics released from National Crime Record Bureau lists 36,835 rape crimes and 4234 attempt to rape crimes as ones that were reported. Moreover, there have been 132,939 sex crimes reported in the same year. It clearly shows us the looming dread under which the girl child of this nation live every day. Seasoned veteran in Child Welfare domain, Umesh Gupta says, ” Abuse is a repetitive pattern of behaviour to maintain power and control over an intimate partner .When it comes to child abuse, usually it’s the unsuspecting close relative or family member of the child that is found to be the culprit.” Same was endorsed in the survey reports of Ministry of Women and Child Development in 2007 .It reveals that 52 percent of children in their tender age encounter sexual abuse one way or another. Moreover, among these 52 percent are those who are unfortunate enough to go through that trauma from none other than their trusted near and dear ones.
Can our so-called ‘country of the youth’ not empower its youth to raise their voices fearlessly against such revolting crimes that cloud over their life? Our system is leaving the girl caught unaware not only of her own biological makeup but also about the dire consequences defined by law for the assailant who attacks or abuses her body. Illustrating this is the case of a 13-year old girl in Madhpur near Hyderabad . Nirmala ( name changed), a 13-year old girl in a public school of Madhapur, near Hyderabad delivered a baby in her school lavatory. The offender was a neighbour, much older to the girl. What’s more disturbing is the claim that not one of the 13 women teachers or her parents had any knowledge about her condition. Renowned psychologist, Dr. Sameer Parikh says, “Even if growing daughters want to confide in their parents about their life, parents neither have the time nor the will to lend them a patient ear.”
Clearly, a society that claims to have had a sexual awakening and openness, one that lauds about its acceptance to changing times fails to re-mediate such incidents or deliver justice to these young victims of sexual abuse and youth. Dr. Debdutt Panda, an experienced Child rights activist, explains, “These children are plagued by the Indian values of propriety and ‘a culture of shame, silence and compromise’ prevails.” Validating the fact further, Sociologist, Aradhna Agarwal says, “It is heart-wrenching to see cases of illegitimate child born out of sexual abuse getting registered in an office with the name of the child’s father being the same as that of the mother’s father. “. You can’t help getting furious when you see how easily the mother of the victim forgives her husband for assaulting their own daughter and doesn’t file any complaint against him.
The society has become accustomed to pushing dirt under the rug to brazen extents by imposing ludicrous bans and repressions on girls, especially adolescent girls. Under such duress, and in order to protect their cherished pieces of independence they often withhold such incidents for fear that their right to education and to move freely in society will also be snatched away from them. This fear is what proves to be life-threatening, much like in the case of Ranjana Kumari (name changed), a young 15-year old girl hailing from Katihaar district in Bihar. She was raped on route from her school back home by a distant relative 24-year old boy, who then fled from the scene. “I felt tired, nauseous and bloated all the time. I had no clue why it was happening. Then I told a close friend about it and got a pregnancy test done that revealed a pregnancy term of four months. It was too late to do anything about it.” Her eyes welling up with tears needs no explanation of shattered dreams and of living the harsh fate of a criminal when she was worthy of the sympathy and tenderness that is due to a victim of ill fate.
She may be an anonymous girl from a rehab centre in Delhi or a teenage girl from Madhapur or a girl from Bihar. Had they known to distinguish between love and rape, had they been aware of their rights to their own body and their legal rights, they would not have suffered such gruesome fate.
The root cause of sexual crimes against young girls appears to be their virgin body and it is the ignorance among girls about their own body that aids such crimes. No doubt that there has been an advent for sex education among teenagers but a huge delta still remains uncovered. We must come forth in unison and further awareness about a girl’s rights to her body and the importance of her consent. Society in general and parents in particular are closing their eyes to such harsh realities, awareness doesn’t end by teaching children to distinguish between good touch and bad touch, or good and bad attention directed to them but also about their legal rights and remedies.
Undoubtedly, the government has created several laws in this regard in the past few years; for instance, after the Nirbhaya awakening in the country in 2013, the government established a fast track court and Protection of Children against Sexual Offences Act (POCSO). Despite these fervent efforts made by the government, the laws wouldn’t yield the requisite result as a majority of the population is unaware of these laws. There is an urgent need to reform present education system to include not just the touch distinction but an all-encompassing mandatory curriculum based on sex related issues. From time to time, parental involvement in these discussions is imperative and it is also necessary to identify confidantes of the child with whom the child feels free to discuss. Children should know the helpline numbers and email IDs that are dedicated to their help and safety. Above all, it is necessary to create a safe platform for these children that is not only shouted about from the rooftops but is also easily available to them. In the world full of despair, war and hatred, girls are our only hope. Need of the hour is to bring in ‘a culture of change, a culture of self-efficacy ‘along with awareness of girl’s own agency over her circumstances.
Names and locations have been changed to protect identities for their security.
( The author is is a media & entertainment Veteran and Principal Advisor to Digestive Health Institute.)
feedbackexcelsior@gmail.com
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