Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Innocence is important than cowardice


Yesterday I had a long discussion about Child Sexual Abuse which made me realize that there is very little awareness about this issue. Little indeed, none of my friends knew the influence of this epidemic.  My discussion partner is highly educated, holding a post graduate degree from one of the elite institute in India and is currently employed in a multinational company. This is a highly neglected topic that people don't discuss about, when the need to do so is the highest. 

The discussion started when I made him aware that April is recognized as CSA awareness month. This shows how little we know and care about the issue. People of our age consider this topic out of their reach as we are not parenting any children yet and hence this is not our cup of tea. There exists official data projecting that 53% of Indian children are abused sexually and the key to keep in mind is that these are only reported cases. With 15% of Indian population aged below 7 and the average age of 50 % of Indians below 25, it can be safely assumed that 20-25% of Indian population can be considered as composed of children. This simply means that two of eight people you see are children and one of them is being sexually abused. Hence if you are living in vicinity of at-least 8 people then you have with you someone who is being or had been sexually abused. This data makes all of us responsible for this issue. 

After recognizing our responsibility let us start with what is, how to know and how to stop CSA. 
Child sexual abuse or child molestation is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. This is the definition given in Wikipedia and I think it covers everything. CSA is done by not only adults but by adolescent. It will not be a psycho looking old stalker but anyone, mostly someone you can never point a finger to. There is absolutely no one you can say is incapable of such a horrible crime. Children abused lose their innocence. Sexuality becomes their way of interaction and they abuse others, never aware of what they are doing is inappropriate. Till they attain the age of understanding, the damage is already done. Abused children can start a chain of events that destroys their innocence and ruins other lives. I read a first person narrative some time back from a lady and her experiences of CSA. She said that she was abused for 6 years by her cousin, when she was 6 till she was 12. For her touching private parts, other’s as well as her own was normal. Till 9 she was the only child in household and whenever met this cousin of hers, he touched her all over and she accepted that. This became her way of dealing with her younger sister when she was born till she was 3. She abused her own sister. Was this her fault or her cousins? He might be a victim himself. 

Most children are abused by their own grandfathers, uncles, aunts, cousins, sibling even father. Why? Is s3x hyped in our society? Yes it is. People going through s3xual frustration look upon children as the easiest option for their satisfaction. It is sick, indeed it is. When we hear the word s3x with our family we suddenly see an elephant in the room. It restricts our sight. We are never able to see how an 8 yr. old in our vicinity is responding to it. In the movie Monsoon Wedding we see how a very young girl tells her family nonchalantly what all she knows about kiss. We need to be more vigilant of a child's interaction with elders. We have to come to terms with fact that today children are much more aware of sensuality issues than we can imagine. With nickelodeon cartoons showing a 10-year-old Kenichi in Ninja Hattori dreaming of his lover Yumeko taking a bath. Shin-Chan peeking under any skirt he sees, we are giving them enough sultry exposure anyway.

The most difficult question lies in how to know a child is being abused. Many people including me advocate of education children about good touch or bad touch. The counter argument I was given was that you are yourself making children conscious of their bodies and sexuality. With information gathering tools increasing around us, we have average age when a child searches for word s3x online down to 8 years. Our children will be more curious than we were and there will be enough ways(or people) to satisfy their curiosity in the wrong way. The argument is valid, but do we have the luxury of asking abusers to stop being sick. No we can’t afford that. For many people the first thought when a child tells them that he/she doesn’t like certain uncle/auntie/cousin is that the child is being manner less and should be given a lecture on how we should respect elders and abide by their wishes. When a child complains of being touched, we try to deny it by galti se hua hoga. I have just one question. Do you remember any time you were touched sexually by mistake? I am sure you do not. No one touches a child wrongly by mistake. It’s the incarnation of their monstrous desire. 

Government can make laws to punish offenders but is it that we want? I hope not. Punishing a criminal post crime is no solution. This is not a theft of material possessions. You can never return a child's innocence by punishing the offender (if you actually recognize them). We need to prevent anything like such from happening. 
Educating you child/sister/brother, getting out of presumptions and confrontation are the only way a child can be protected. You just can’t ask people to stop being sick. No you can’t.  

No comments:

Post a Comment