Child Sexual Abuse

By Kirthi Jayakumar

Diya's mother died when she was three, and her father remarried when she was five. By the time Diya turned seven, she had a step-brother. Diya had no problems with her stepmother and vice versa and even missed her when she went to the village with her children.

Today, Diya is eight. Her stepmother has just left for her village with her son. Diya's father is an inspector of police. He and Diya, are expected to join her for the summer holidays a few days later. Diya's father decides to give her a bath today. Diya protests. She can bathe herself, she says. She has been bathing herself all along, she says. Today I feel like giving you a bath, her father says. Can't a father do this out of love for his daughter, he asks Diya. Diya gives in. Her father makes her undress, he spends a lot of time soaping her beginning-to-bud breast area. He parts her legs and spends time soaping her behind.

For the five days of Diya's stepmother's absence, her father bathes her every single day for those five days, sometimes thrice a day. He keeps her locked in the house as he goes out to work and returns to bathe her again. By the third time he has soaped his erect penis and inserted it into Diya's anus. By the sixth time he has vaginally penetrated her with it, bathing her again to wash off all the blood. Immediately after, he is sexually abusing her through every possible orifice, devouring her, muttering all the while 'You are mine, first, before any other man sinks his teeth into you.'

And thus, a child's innocence has been taken to task. Beaten, Shaken, Destroyed to bits. And scarred for life. All by means of a single destructive means. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Once bitten, twice shy- so goes the saying. How many times are we going to let our children get bitten? How many times are we going to hear of a scary incident of such nature and then say "Oh my God! How could they?" and dismiss the entire episode from our memory? It's time we sit up and take notice. It's time we decide to put an end to all such evil. An evil called Child Sexual Abuse.

The Offence that Child Sexual Abuse is

Child sexual abuse refers to the sexual activity between a minor and an older person in which the dominant position of the older person is used to coerce or exploit the younger. In effect, it refers to any sexual contact between a child and another person (from fondling to rape) with or without force. People who prefer sexual activity with a child are known as 'paedophiles'. According to the American Psychological Association, assailants, as also the victim may be of either sex, and can be homosexuals or even heterosexuals. As per the International Labour Organisation (ILO), in the text of the "Worst forms of child labour Convention, 1999", commercial sexual exploitation of children also qualifies as sexual abuse.

Each country chooses to define the gruesome act in different ways. In India, at present there is no single, specific definition on child abuse, a definition has been inferred from a number of articles in the Constitution, the Indian Penal Code, and a plethora of judgments by the judiciary. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child defines Child Sexual abuse under Article 191. State parties, under Article 191, shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation including sexual abuse, while in the care of the parent(s),legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child.

In a nutshell, Child Sexual Abuse mainly deals with the following:

• Sexual Contact between an adult and child who may be related (incest) or otherwise
• Sexual Intercourse in Any form with a person below the age of majority
• Fondling a child's genitals for sexual gratification
• Encouraging to touch one's genitals for sexual gratification
• Inducing a child to touch his own genitals for the gratification of oneself
• Encouraging or forcing a child to masturbate
• Inserting objects or body parts inside the vagina/mouth/anus of a child
• Making a child watch or hear sexual acts
• Exposing private parts to a child
• Making suggestive or lewd comments
• Forcing a child to either watch or read pornographic material
• Watching a child in a stage of nudity
• Taking obscene photographs or pseudo photographs of children
• Buying and Selling children for prostitution
• Using children as prostitutes
• Sodomising a Child
• Genital Mutilation.

Child Sexual Abuse need not specifically be perpetrated by physical contact. Mere traumatizing of the mind with inappropriate content relating to pornography is also described as a form of Child Sexual Abuse. Child abuse is the physical or psychological maltreatment of a child by an adult often synonymous with the term child maltreatment or the term child abuse and neglect . There are many forms of abuse and neglect and many governments have developed their own legal definition of what constitutes child maltreatment for the purposes of removing a child and/or prosecuting a criminal charge. The report by the Department of Women and Child Development on the implementation of the Convention of Child Rights in India, prepared for the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, has identified child sexual abuse as a priority issue for immediate action.

The 'Study on Child abuse India 2007' conducted by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, acknowledges that child sex abuse takes place in schools. One out of two children in schools has faced sexual abuse in one form or the other. Overall, more boys than girls, face various forms of sexual abuse. Shockingly enough, the abuser could be from the peer group or an older student. Sometimes the urge to know more leads to the urge to "try", and children of their age or younger are easy prey for students at schools.

The Offender

The term child sexual offender refers to a person who has been convicted for one or more child sexual abuse offenses . Most often, the offender is tabulated a Pedophile. The term "pedophile" is used colloquially to refer to child sexual offenders. However, not all child sexual offenders meet the diagnostic criteria of pedophilia, being that pedophiles are essentially those who suffer from mental disorders. While Films and books garnish the mind with evil pictures and scary images of the "villains", real life offenders are not necessarily a chip of that block. In fact, normal people, people who are friendly to the child, people who are related to the child, and people who lead normal lives are the perpetrators. The abuser may be a family person, with children of his own. The abuser may be a well placed professional. The abuser may lack altogether, any mental trouble.

Ephebophilia, also known as hebephilia, is the condition of being sexually attracted primarily or exclusively to adolescents. These terms are used in contrast with pedophilia; however, in jurisdictions where the legal age of consent is higher (like USA and Britain), pedophilia is sometimes used more broadly in a non-medical sense to describe both ephebophilia and attraction to younger children; in effect, any person younger than the legal age of consent.

Pederasty has historically been given sharply different meanings, sometimes referring to male homosexual interactions in general, sometimes to anal sex in general, and sometimes specifically to sex between men and boys. In academic usage the word has still a fourth meaning, referring specifically to the age-structured homosexual interactions practiced in classical Greece between older men and adolescent boys, and by extension to age-structured homosexual interactions in other cultures.

Lolita syndrome is sometimes used to refer to attraction to adolescent females. The term Lolicon is a corrupted abridgment of Lolita complex, it refers to manga-style pornography depicting neotonous female characters. A male equivilent called shotacon was later adapted.

Nepiophilia, also called infantophilia, is the attraction to toddlers and infants (usually ages 0–3). Some researchers have suggested a distinction between pedophilia and nepiophilia, especially for same-sex pedophilia as it is unusual for pedophiles to prefer toddlers.

The effects

Child sexual abuse scars the victim for life. Physical and mental damages are beyond explicable. This list includes within its gamut things like anxiety, depression, poor self-esteem, somatoform disorders, complex post traumatic stress disorders, neurosis, emotional dys-regulation and sexualized behaviour, problems associated with learning, behaviour and adjustment problems. Some of the most common effects are:

• Bruises and injuries to private parts
• Inability to sit comfortably
• Sexually transmitted diseases at a young age
• Re current urinary infections
• Anorexia nervosa or bulimia
• Discomfort experienced while urinating or defacating
• Trouble walking properly
• internal injuries

In addition to these, a marked change in behaviour is observed. Some of the major issues are:

• Destructive behaviour
• Sudden sullenness, withdrawal
• Refusal to stay alone
• Refusal to interact with others
• A sudden change in peer groups
• Psychosomatic diseases
• Learning disorders
• Sexually abusive behaviour towards children of a younger age
• Sexual knowledge of an inappropriate degree for the age
• Self hatred
• Low self esteem
• Not trusting others easily
• Addictions
• Self infliction of wounds- masochistic attitudes
• Over dressing or under dressing
• Sudden change in behaviour- fetishes, obsessive compulsive nature
• Running away

The Law

The situation prevailing in most parts of the world warrants the need for legal protection and the implementation of more stringent legislative provisions. A basic outline of the legal system prevailing in the USA and UK have been elucidated, while a more detailed analysis of the Indian legislative position.

In The United States:

Each state has evolved its own system of dealing with child sexual abuse. The magnitude of the offense determines the magnitude of the sentence. Criminal penalties in the USA include imprisonment, parole supervision after release, and registration as a sex offender. The civil side entails the payment of monetary damages to the victim. The ADAM WLSH CHILD PROTECTION AND SAFETY ACT of 2006 authorizes the indefinite and involuntary commitment of sexually dangerous persons, whom the states determine are dangerous to others because of a mental illness, abnormality or disorder that creates a risk that the individual will engage in sexually violent conduct or child molestation.

In The United Kingdom:

In England and Wales, a multitude of acts of parliament punish the offence of child sexual abuse. Some of these are:

• The Sexual Offences Act,1956- Under ss.13,14,15 and 16, and Schedule 2- indecent assault on a male/female
• The Indecency with Children Act,1960- s 1(1)- gross indecency with a child
• Protection of Children Act, 1978- S.1 (1)(a) and s.6- taking indecent photographs or pseudo photographs of a child.
• Sexual Offences Act, 2003- s.13, s.7(1)- sexual assault of a child
• Criminal Law (consolidation)(Scotland) Act, 1995- Incest, intercourse with girls under 16 forbidden
• Civic Government (Scotland) act,1982- s.52 and 52-A- Taking, distributing, possessing indecent photographs or pseudo photographs of children
• Protection of Children and prevention of sexual offences (Scotland) Act,2005- Grooming, paying for sexual services of a child punishable.

In India:

• The juvenile justice Act, 2000- provision for rehabilitation by adoption
• Child marriage restraint act,1929- s.3 and 4- punishing male for marrying a female below 18
• Prohibition of Child marriage Act, 2006- s.9- punishing male for marrying a female below 18
• Suppression of Immoral Traffic in women and Girls Act,1956- s.5 to 10- punishes prostitution, inducing, taking woman or girl for prostitution.
• The Indian Penal Code-s.375- rape, s.372&373- selling and buying minor girls for prostitution punishable.

Sexual abuse of children is a very real problem in India, and the situation is aided by the absence of effective legislation and the silence that surrounds the offence. India has become one of the most sought after child sex tourism destination. A report, "Trafficking in Women and Children in India", sponsored by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), highlights the fact that in addition to Goa, (which since the 1990s has uncovered rackets by Freddy Peats and Helmut Brinkmann) Alleppey and Ernakulam districts of Kerala seem to be catching up in the field of child sexual abuse. In Kerala, "sex on the water" is the latest rage for pedophiles. Most pedophiles heading for Kerala start in Delhi, where police estimates the existence of 10 cartels specialising in child sex tourism.

In India, there are no laws that cover child abuse in all respects. Lawyers choose to perceive the problem as originating from the law enforcing agencies.. 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- where the child is cross-examined over a dozen times. 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.

Indian Society has always been conservative, with the whole fiasco that drives them towards keeping their girls and their 'virginity' safe. Social and cultural practices have been built around ensuring this. This shows that there is sufficient awareness of the fact that a girl child is unsafe though nobody talks about it. However this fear is for girls and the safety net is generally not extended to boys.

It's ironical that the very land that shuns all publicity for sex has the most bizarre number of cases of child sexual abuse. Earlier this year, numerous events were recorded as part of the "Nithari Killings". The whole nation was shaken up by the consternation the little village was embroiled in. Much to the chagrin of the parents of the victims, little was done to give them justice. There are even cynics, who blame the children for having run the gauntlet of the crime spot, and for having fallen for the traps set. The point is- every time something of such a cadre crops up, it remains a national phenomenon for a few days, and finally takes a backseat. People laugh off the incident, blame the judiciary, and say that eventually the offenders will go scot free. Who's there for the children? Who is there to tell the children of today that it's going to be okay if they were well equipped, and equip them with what they need? How many schools are taking it up on themselves to guide their children? How many parents sit down and teach their children the difference between a good touch and a bad one? And, how many parents effectively listen to their children when the latter wish to tell them about their experience?

Children and parents need to be assured that they are in the right hands, at the school they go to. A greater part of the day is spent at school, and children are at the mercy of staff and workers at the school. Care must be taken in analyzing the staff, and in apprising the staff with regards to the concept of child sexual abuse. Warnings must be given to the staff so as not to conduct themselves in an unscrupulous manner.

Protect yourself, Protect your children.

Here's what you, as a parent, can do, to deal with an issue like Child Sexual Abuse.

• The most significant role parents can play is preventive in nature.
• Work with the idea that no child is safe.
• Understand all the ramifications of the issue.
• Talk to your children from very early on, on the issue at hand.
• Be constantly alert, avoiding any action or decision which is potentially dangerous for your children
• Believe and listen to them when they speak up
• Encourage them to understand that they were not the wrongdoers.
• Drill home the fact in the children that their body is private and nobody, just nobody can touch one's private parts in any situation.
• Teach the child to say no to any person or anything that makes her uncomfortable or sense danger. Tell them, it is ok to say no to anyone at all and most certainly to strangers.
• Tell the child to obey her instincts when she senses something amiss. If she thinks and feels that the situation is uncomfortable or the person is not doing something right, she must get away at the earliest.
• Most significantly, make it known that the child can come and tell you anything, anytime. As a parent, one must firmly put across that they would listen to the child no matter what has happened. Nothing compares to the sense of betrayal a child feels if the parents do not believe her.
• Coordinate and check out the facilities at school, to make sure that your child is safe.
• Never leave your child in the care of servants and drivers all the time.
• Be very careful before allowing children to spend the day or night with friends or cousins. Do not hesitate to ask who all will be there, if someone responsible will be present at all times.

However, despite all best intentions, if the child brings any untoward incident to the parents' notice, then the most immediate and important thing would be to:

• Accept and listen unquestioningly what the child has to say.
• Reassure the child that she is not at fault or responsible.
• Gently find out all the facts and then try to ascertain what happened.
• Take whatever steps required to avoid a repeat incident,
• Report the incident.
• Provide the child with professional help and counseling- based on the degree of trauma.
• Advise the child that she should stay away from that particular place or person, until you have dealt with it. Teach her what she must do if a similar situation should repeat itself.
• Watch over her closely the next few days, and reassure her often. If she displays any unnatural behaviour patterns, seek professional advice. If necessary, do not hesitate to take her for professional intervention.
• However difficult it may be, do have a chat with the person concerned, especially if he is a family member or is well known. Make it clear that you know what happened, and your child's safety is your priority. Ensure that this person does not further harm or threaten your daughter because she confided in you. If you are up to it, confront this person and threaten him with the worst. Please do not be fearful of what people may think of your daughter, you or your family. It is your child's safety that is foremost, their health and her life.

Parents need to know that sexual abuse is a punishable offence under several sections of the Criminal Procedure Code. Such incidents should therefore be reported to the police, instead of keeping it under wraps for fear of social stigma. Lack of reaction by parents when abuse has occurred is comprehended even by a young child, who is left feeling bewildered that her parents are not dealing with the person who has hurt her. Far from it, she is asked to behave herself and keep quiet. If not helped appropriately or reassured adequately, this child can be scarred for life.

A plethora of victims remain scarred for life, with fewer avenues to approach for help and healing. Some are scared to come out with their issues, for fear of stigmatization, of being blamed, of being ostracized. Many a case remains unreported, while still many remain within the portals of the complaint books in police stations, still requiring action to be taken for something that happened years ago.

A social evil, Child Sexual Abuse is a crime of the basest and vilest nature. Naive children who ought to be enjoying the phase of innocence are toys in the hands of unscrupulous minds, leaving them in a state of trauma, with a mere cadaverous existence. The modern era is dotted with inappropriate content displayed for all to view, leading to disastrous consequences. Equipped with insufficient information, and sometimes information of the wrong kind, children remain vulnerable to the threat posed by dodgy abusers.

Quite commonly, the blame game does the rounds. People always point fingers at victims- "She's the one". Wrong! Did the child choose to suffer this? Did she ask for it at all? Most people nod vociferously, as I ask them that. "She probably dressed provocatively." They say wisely. Rubbish! Did any of the children at Nithari dress provocatively? Or was Dhananjay Chatterjee's victim doing a la item girl? We need to have a conscience. A heart. All they need is to help getting caught in the first place, and if caught- they need help, getting out of the trauma. We have a choice. Shun. Or Support.