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Following the heart tugging first episode on Female Foeticide of Satyamev Jayate (see all posts about the tv show here) I was awaiting what Aamir Khan and his team would have for us in the second one. Would it be as effective and eye opening?
Theme of the episode
The show started with Aamir Khan saying how special children are for their parents and how much protective the latter are for the former. He went on to share his own concerns and worries for his children. The audience comprising of young parents were asked to guess the percentage of children in India who are victims of child sexual abuse. Different people made estimates of which the maximum number was 10%. So when Aamir Khan revealed that according to the findings of a research carried out by the Women and Child Development Ministry in 2007 53% respondents (across different parts of India in both rural villages and urban cities) reported to have undergone child sexual abuse it left everyone shell shocked. In the light of this staggering information the question of how safe our children are was brought up.
The stories
To break myths such as (i) children are most safe at home, (ii) only girls are sexually abused and (iii) the effect of what happened in one's childhood does not affect the future, many victims came forward to open up about their stories.
Cinderella Prakash told how when she was just 11 years old her mother was in the hospital. Taking advantage her being alone at home one of her parent's friend, a man old enough to be her grandfather, one day came home on a pretext and sexually abused her. Hearing her account of the extent of abuse and her feeling of disgust at her own self at that point, was deeply disturbing. From them on she would try to run away whenever this man would come to visit her parents. Cinderella further, revealed that it was just four years before that she actually told her parents of this incident. She urged those who have suffered or are suffering from child sexual abuse to break the silence and vent out.
Harish Iyer a grown up man now, was raped multiple times by a relative when he was just 6 years old. The abuse continued until he became 18. In this long duration of pain and suffering there were two occasions when he tried to tell his mother. But both times he was too young to be able to express himself clearly. Even when his mother understood, on the show she regrettably admitted, that she did not know how to respond as it was a family member who was involved and kept silent on the matter and didn't take any action. Harish said that it was like he was trapped in a cycle and continued to give in as his uncle would threaten him, until one day he mustered all his courage and said a resounding NO to the man.
Ganesh Nallari, a fashion designer, recounted how he was abused by his uncle from the age of 5 to 17 years. What happened in the past affected his future life so much so that that it was hard form him to form relationships. While breaking down he expressed that He held a grudge against God but that he was trying to forgive his abuser as only then he would feel free.
What is behind the silence?
Anuja Gupta, who runs an organisation called RAHI which provides counselling to victims of child sexual abuse, described what is really going through the child's mind: the victimised children, though young, can gauge that something wrong is happening but think that no one will believe them and worse still instead of the abuser they even might be held responsible for the ghastly act. Anuja further opined that parents are ill prepared for such situations and so for the children in her own words "silence is a kind of self preservation". Further the silence could also be a part of the abuse due to the direct or indirect threats they may receive from the abuser.
Anuja most importantly outlined the different steps parents must take when a child approaches them:
- Believe in the child
- Infuse confidence in him/her
- Apologise for the abuse happening on their watch and
- Take a step to put an end to it.
Unmasking the abuser
Dr. Rajat Sharma, a psycologist by profession, who has in his research talked to prisoners in jail on charges of child sexual abuse was asked to help identify who an abuser can be. He revealed that such people normally have no guilt, treat the child as an adult and believe that the kid enjoys the experience. In his view such culprits carefully mark their target and plan their actions. They normally have charming personalities and are able to win over the confidence of the children, parents and even neighbours. Though in India we give a grave significance to our children respecting the elders, he wisely expounded that we should rather tell the children to respect behaviour and not age.
Turning it around
On the bright side we were introduced to an agency called CHILDLINE India (click link) which is the world's largest children's helpline reachable by the number 1098. The service is available 24 hours a day and they come to the chid's aid within an hour.
At the time this episode was aired there was no stringent law against child sexual abuse in India. There were many loopholes where insertion of a body part into the mouth verses a vaginal penetration was not considered a criminal offence. Nishit Kumar of CHILDLINE narrated their long 10 year struggle, because of such gaps in the law, in bringing to justice two ex-naval British officers who on the pretext of running a shelter in Mumbai for homeless children forced them to perform obscene acts. He highlighted the great need of sensitivity by the police, medical staff and lawyers in treating the victimised children during the entire investigation process.
At the end of the episode Aamir Khan conducted a short workshop (see video here) with a few kids in the age group of 5-10. He asked them if they knew what was danger and what did they identify safety with. He informed them about the three danger points in their body that no one should touch, not even a doctor in the absence of their parents. In a friendly way he made the children remember a set of three actions to carry out if someone touched them in those danger areas - (1) scream loudly, (2) run away and go to a safe place and (3) go to the person they trust most and tell them what has happened. He finally suggested that parents carry out this workshop with their kids once every six months.
My comments
"The new Act provides for a variety of offenses under which an accused can be punished. It recognizes forms of penetration other than peno-vaginal penetration and criminalizes acts of immodesty against children too. The legislators tried to draft a gender-neutral Act, but failed, using the pronoun 'he' in the description of various offenses. With respect to pornography, the Act criminalizes even watching or collection of pornographic content involving children. The Act makes abettment of child sexual abuse an offense. It also provides for various procedural reforms, making the tiring process of trial in India considerably easier for children. The Act has been criticized as its provisions seem to criminalize consensual sexual intercourse between two people below the age of 18."
While there may be others, the only film that I have seen to sensitively talk about child sexual abuse is Monsoon Wedding which released 13 years back in 2001. It rightly captured everything that this episode of Satyamev Jayate talked about:
- the abuser being a well respected family friend who has always helped them in their hour of need
- the young girl trying to push away the abuser
- the long silence for years on part of victims
- the disbelief, laying the blame on the victim and initial non-response from family members when the truth comes out.
In India we are mostly close knit families and the worry of what people might say is often a great influence behind our inactions. However, in matters when a child's safety is at stake such paralysing thoughts should be quashed. It is important to realise that there are certain occasions where silence is definitely not golden.
Like Ganesh Nallari there must be many other victims angry at God, some may have even turned away from Him completely and others might have taken the wrong path. One of the victims interviewed, Nazneen said that to forget the pain that she suffered she took to drugs and alcohol. It is therefore, imperative that these innocent victims are given all the love, care and confidence that they need so that they learn to stop hating themselves and to distrusting everyone around them.
Sometimes those guilty to have broken beautiful spirits may go unpunished by our laws, but what Jesus Christ says is in store for them is quite frightening:
"But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea." (Mathew, Chapter 18, verse 6)
