Combating Child Sexual Abuse

[amithar]

We often hear about Child Sexual Abuse issues – but all such references appear merely as isolated incidents in the Newspaper. What’s worse is that no one seems to care about the long-term effects that it has on the victim. The decision-making bodies (the Government, the Judiciary and the Education system in particular) are apathetic to the issue and the icing on this sorry state of affairs is the lack of appropriate legal mechanism to tackle the issue. There is NO LAW that makes the sexual abuse of a child a legally punishable offense.

I am associated with an Elaan - an NGO working in the area of Child Sexual Abuse and working strongly towards making it a punishable offense.

Elaan was founded in 2004 as part of an endeavor to encourage dialogue on the issues of child sexual abuse (CSA) and incest. It functioned as a youth group for 3 years before being registered as an NGO on June 7th 2007 under the West Bengal Societies Registration Act of 1961.

Elaan’s mission is to facilitate awareness, outreach and healing from Child Sexual Abuse. We do this by working with various target groups, creating customized awareness programmes to suit each age group and by consistently communicating with our network of therapists, peer counselors and lawyers to constantly further outreach. We use platforms such as the Internet, public meeting spaces, and cultural events and are trying to build a network of schools and colleges as part of our awareness and outreach programmes. Elaan believes in “Healing, Dealing and Surviving” and hope to contribute towards the following in the long run:

Þ A law against CSA in India
Þ The revival / introduction of sex education and personal safety in schools
Þ A nationwide network of impersonal, non-judgmental therapists
Þ A survivor support network [we already have one in Kolkata]

CSA, according to Elaan's definition of the term, refers to:

the emotional manipulation of a minor [child below the age of consent, which in India, is 18] by an older person, with the purpose of attaining sexual gratification for the older person, through this unequal power balance of adult over child.

Many of us misconstrue the term “Child Sexual Abuse” by restricting the abuse to “sex” between an adult and child. Let us set the record straight with a few facts -

Myth: Child Sexual Abuse is about sex between an adult and child.

• Fact: Child Sexual Abuse is actually about the use of force and manipulation by an adult over a child, the end result of which is one or more sexually abusive acts NOT necessarily including rape. CSA is 90% about the unfair use of unequal power and 10% about the actual abuse. An important point here is that the sex acts are termed “abusive” because the child is below the age of consent. We therefore have an age disparity that results in the imbalance of power.

Myth: Child Sexual Abuse and Rape is the same thing

• Fact: That is incorrect. As mentioned, CSA is about unfair power and manipulation. Rape is a different subject altogether. The Elaan website [www.elaan.org] has considerable data on what constitutes CSA. CSA stops short of Rape, the pre-requisite for which is “penetration”. In the case of Rape there are laws in place; Section 375-6 and the controversial Article 377 (unnatural offences), which we hope will soon be repealed.

Myth: Child Sexual Abuse occurs only with the girl child, and does not occur with boys.

• Fact: CSA occurs and impacts both genders equally, although we have noticed in recent years that the number of male survivors of sexual abuse is slightly more than the number of female survivors.

Myth: Sex offenders are male; women are not/cannot be sex offenders.

• Fact: Both genders are equally capable of sexually abusing children.

There are numerous myths that need to be cleared, and innumerable loose ends to tie, both legally as well as educationally. However, we can only function with the support of the general thinking public, and can do so much, beyond which we feel that it is the duty of parents, teachers and decision-making bodies to contribute to the movement against this heinous rape of childhood and unite against injustice, in favor of happy, healthy childhoods for our generation and for the future.

Readers: Please feel free to leave comments at the end of this post to let us know what you think of the issue.
Fellow bloggers: Please feel free to link to this post or use the information on this post to spread the word - if you feel strongly enough about the issue.
Friends / Puys: Help us spread the word in whichever way possible - It probably won't take much effort on your part. But merely spreading awareness on a word-of-mouth basis can make a huge difference to the cause.

I hope the MODs take note of this thread and do not object to having this thread around for the purpose of discussing this oft-neglected social evil. Any ideas / suggestions towards tackling it are welcome. Thanks for your support!

[marijuana_user]

Nice initiative Amit!

Well one of the very core issue which is not highlighted that much but exists everywhere from schools to villages to cities.Making a law against or making it a punishable offence is serious need of the hour.

Will try to help in every possible way here!

Is dre anything of the same sorts in delhi???

tc....

[amithar]

Originally Posted by marijuana_user

Nice initiative Amit!

Well one of the very core issue which is not highlighted that much but exists everywhere from schools to villages to cities.Making a law against or making it a punishable offense is serious need of the hour.

Will try to help in every possible way here!

Is dre anything of the same sorts in delhi???

tc....

Hi Marijuana_user,

Elaan basically operates out of Kolkata and deals with cases in and around this region. We have actually investigated certain cases (intervention) and have established links with Local Police Stations.

Regarding Delhi, we are planning to branch out into other cities as and when we have the resources to do so. Delhi will certainly be very much on our radar. But as you know for any NGO, funding is a problem and currently we are working on that aspect. We have established a trust as well so that Organizations / Individuals donating can get a tax-evasion under Section 80 D / 80G. In fact thats one of the areas in which I am helping out in the initiative. I plan to contact a few corporates and get them to help us or take some joint steps in this direction. Let's see how it can work out.

Otherwise, things are going good. We registered ourselves as an NGO under the relevant Act of Parliament in June 2007 and things have gathered momentum since.

We would love to have you (and anyone else who might be interested on-board). SInce you are in Delhi, what you can do is publicise about the issue using online forums / websites / blogs.

For example, I have written about it in my blog:
Combating Child Sexual Abuse Talking Tails
and have encouraged my friends to speak about it and condemn any such incidents and / or report it to us.

You can also join our Orkut / Facebook / mySpace Communities at the following locations to know mroe about our activities and progress:

Login | Facebook

MySpace

http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=24455884

And as far as the law is concerned - You are Bang on! ... A LAW is the need of the hour. We do have an online petition here - the link for which I shall be posting here soon!

Thanks for your Support.

Keep watching this space!

[marijuana_user]

Originally Posted by amithar

. We do have an online petition here - the link for which I shall be posting here soon!

Thanks for your Support.

Keep watching this space!

I think apart from that you can establish the network by hiring volunteers in diff cities and thereby asking them to report any issue relating to child violence in there cities.

These issues are sort of taboo issues which are not reported at all,the child lives with it and accept it as it is.SO here what you can do is go to diff schools and there by counsel students of say till class 6th or 7th.The main target here can be Boarding Schools,then another target where u can organise and increase awareness is poor areas in a particular city.

Chalo keep up the Gud work!

Bye:!!

[deep_agrawal]

Superb Initiative Amit.

A query:

Are we combating only the sexual abuse? Are we not concentrating on other child abuse such as child labor, mental abuse, physical abuse?

I'll contribute with my ideas and suggestions soon .

[amithar]

Originally Posted by deep_agrawal

Superb Initiative Amit.

A query:

Are we combating only the sexual abuse? Are we not concentrating on other child abuse such as child labor, mental abuse, physical abuse?

I'll contribute with my ideas and suggestions soon .

@ deep_agarwal,

That's a very valid point you have raised. Although the purpose of our NGO is sensitizing the society and people towards children in General... we chose to deal with Child Sexual Abuse in particular.

The reasons for sticking to it particularly are very simple:

1. There are laws in place dealing with child labour & exploitation but there are NO LAWS against CHild Sexual Abuse, per se.
2. Issues of Child Sexual Abuse are often not discussed - neither at a societal level.. and the victim is often too traumatised to come "out with it!"

So the onus very clearly is on getting thinigs out in the open - If you don't know the problem, you can't find a solution!

Thanks for the Support!



@ marijuana_user

Yes, we do undertake such initiatives in and around Kolkata and have conducted workshops / awareness sessions in the past.

As far as volunteers is concerned, we are always open to hearing instances and if possible even intervening in cases. The philosphy is simple.... Impacting General Public Thinking is the main issue!

[monsteronCAT]

hi puys,

hats off to u guys ... u r raising this issue...
u dont hv to visit slums areas fr this esp...
hv u observe sumthng on ur train journey.... esp kids who dance , sing n esp kids of 2 to 3yrs who does gymnastic kind of art i.e those who play wid ring.... especially gurls n boys both are ill treated by even guys of age 40 to 50 years.... these middle class families protect n possesive abt their kids
bt i dunno y they dnt even consider these kids as humanbeings...teasing n torturing them physically.... how dare they tch them...??!!
sickening act i hv ever seen.... bt wont b able to do nethng... i cant imagine how can i be so helpless....

regards
monster

[amithar]

As mentioned in the previous post,

The Online Petition to put in place a Law Against Child Sexual Abuse (LACSA) is at the following URL:

We Need a LAW AGAINST CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE in India Petition

Would request fellow Puys to please sign it and push for a Law Against this terrible social evil!

[somak2001us]

hey,nice initiative dude!!!!!

i stay at kolkata......is there anyway i can join u all......

my dad is also working against all types of labour problems,specially child labour........

[amithar]

Originally Posted by somak2001us

hey,nice initiative dude!!!!!

i stay at kolkata......is there anyway i can join u all......

my dad is also working against all types of labour problems,specially child labour........

Of course!

We are open to people and would like to have on-board those who are genuinely interested in contributing to the society... There has to be an element of self-lessness involved..

There is usually a short quiz to see how much you know (or don't know!) about CSA..

Also, there are internships on offer for students who would like to spend their summer constructively and help us spread awareness about the issue through our programs.

To be a part of it, you can go the following location and find out the phone numbers listed at the end of the blog post..

Combating Child Sexual Abuse Talking Tails

Make sure to comment on the post... WIll make me feel like im not speaking to the walls!

Thank you for your interest..