If there is
something that is deeply traumatizing and hurting, something that is
unpardonable and indigestible, then the first in the list comes Child Abuse.
And when this abuse is sexual, the repercussions have to be extreme and the
guilty should undoubtedly be hanged.
The
inside story
The number
of child care homes and institutions is on the rise, and so are the cases of
sexual abuse. And what is more pathetic is, the cases that haven’t come into
the limelight largely outnumber the ones that have come under the police
scanner. According to the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development, there
are over 640 homes across the country (child care centres and institutions)
registered under the Juvenile Justice Act 2000. And over 30,000 children live
in such homes. But when it comes to the number of homes unregistered under the
act, the data and information is null.
Now let’s
take a brief look at what actually is happening in most of the CCIs (Child Care
Institutions).
The girl
children are forced to strip off their clothes. There was forced abortion
happening by inserting objects in their private parts. Every inmate,
irrespective of their age and gender, were forced to consume liquor every
night. The kids are forced to watch porn and the so called ‘caretakers’ use
foul language at them.
This is just
the brief, which itself is sickening. The activities and atrocities that
haven’t come under the scanner are many more, and what is even more painful is
the fact that a few cops are also involved in this abuse and torture towards
children.
How the
inside incidents spill out
The public
comes to know of all such incidents only when an insider manages an ingenious
escape and reports to someone, or when a rare and exceptional event exposes the
sex tyrants. It has come out through many experts that for every reported case
of sexual assault in a CCI, there are ten unreported cases.
The JJ Act,
2000, demands regular inspections by the inspection committee, monthly meetings
of the management committees and quarterly inspections by the Child Welfare
Committee members. When a home is not registered under the JJ Act, it gets the
chance of escaping all this scrutiny. There are cases when the members of the
inspection committee are bribed by the caretakers of CCIs upon accidental
exposure of the inside activities, and the result is the innocent children
losing their very chance of freedom from the hellholes of sexual abuse.
Some
appalling facts
A huge
number of children in our country go missing every year. Some are kidnapped,
some are sold by their families in return for money, and some are lured for the
promise of a better life. The following are the statistics provided by CRY
(Child Rights and You)
- About 9,000 children go missing in India every year.
- Over 5 lakh children are forcefully pushed into sex trade
every year.
- Approximately 2 million commercial sex workers are between
the ages of 5 and 15 years, and over 3.3 million are between the ages of 15 and
18.
- 40 percent of the children’s population in our country is
into commercial sex working; and 80 percent of these children are found in the
five metros – Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore and Chennai.
- 71 percent of these children are illiterate, that is, they
are not aware of what is being done to them.
We got to
think
Today’s
children are the products of tomorrow’s India, but when the lives of these
children are sailing on the waters of sexual abuse, we can anticipate our
nation walking towards darkness. The children who have escaped from these homes
of horror had put it that their lives had been extremely painful and agonizing,
not just mentally but also physically. In most cases, they don’t have a chance
to even interact with the staff of the CCIs. They are beaten badly in the name
of inculcating discipline, insulted and molested, abused verbally, physically
and sexually. Young girls are gang-raped in such homes, again and again; they
are tormented and tortured to an extent where they heart-fully feel death is a
better option.
Our
government had produced a bill (Prevention of Sexual Offences Against Children)
in 2011, but there have also been reports stating that the present legislation
is not sufficient to curb child sexual abuse. We do not know how far the
government is serious regarding this issue. We do not know if the government,
in the first place, has bothered to bother about this matter. All we got to
know is, we just can’t rely or wait for our government. To make things change,
we got to move.
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