Because I care

As part of a team creating a series of self-help books on various topics for children in the eight to twelve age group I had an experience that is imprinted in memory forever. I’d written a book on child sexual abuse by relatives – a fictional story about a little girl who had suffered sexual abuse at the hands of her maternal uncle. It was being tested with a group of twenty girls in Karnataka. The facilitator read out the story. There was pin drop silence in the room. The story concluded and suddenly on of the girls burst into tears and then another. Slowly they began to speak of their own experiences with sexual abuse and how they had been able to tell no one about it all these years. What echoed most resoundingly was the plea: “Please help us. We have no one to turn to.”

Back in Mumbai, when I shared this heart-rending experience with my college going daughter, her response was equally wrenching. “Ma,” she said, “this kind of abuse is everywhere. I have a friend who was abused regularly for four years by a caretaker. She’s so distraught I feel terrible. The abuse stopped many years ago, but she hasn’t got over it. It haunts her every day. She feels very helpless. And there are many cases like this.”

Statistics on recent sexual abuse cases against children tell a horrifying tale. A 1999 World Health Organization report stated that 1 in 10 children is 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. Huma Khan of the Kanpur-based Centre for the Study of Human Rights terms child sexual abuse as one of the least documented violations. But studies made across India, documented in Grace Poore's resource book The Children We Sacrifice show the wide prevalence of the problem.

A survey with 350 schoolgirls in New Delhi by Sakshi (an NGO) in 1997, showed that 63% had experienced sexual abuse by family members; 25% of the girls had either been raped, made to masturbate the perpetrator or perform oral sex. Another 1997 study on middle and upper class women from Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi and Goa by the NGO, RAHI revealed that 76% of respondents had been sexually abused as children, with 71% been abused either by relatives or by someone they knew and trusted.

Samvada's 1996 study on students in Bangalore stated that 47% of the respondents had been sexually abused with 62% having been raped once and 38% having been repeatedly violated.

Tulir-CPHCSA`s study in 2006,conducted among 2211 school going children in Chennai, indicates a prevalence rate of 42%. Children of all socio-economic groups were found equally vulnerable. While 48% of boys reported abuse the prevalence rate among girls was 39%.

Yes. It is a reality that sexual abuse of kids is rampant. As adults, we need to be acutely aware of the fact that any child we know is vulnerable to sexual abuse. As it is not always possible for us to ensure a child's safety, it is critical that we teach children how to protect themselves.