Making childhood safe for children is becoming an overwhelming task

Bangalore again. The garden city first turned to 

garbage city and now becoming infamous for 

rape city.

Image courtesy: www.exclusivenews.co.in

A three-year-old girl child in Bangalore was allegedly sexually abused at the private school she attends. "We have registered a criminal case late Tuesday (Oct.21, 2014) on a complaint by the victim's father that his young daughter was sexually abused in the Orchid International School premises," said Police Inspector TC Venkatesh. "We are checking the footage of the closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras installed in the school and questioning its staff and faculty," he added.

According to the police complaint filed by her father, the child "had signs of fever and complained to her mother that she was physically abused by someone she did not know or recognize."

The public anger of the Bangalore VIBGYOR High (School) rape incident reported about a couple of months ago is still lingering, while more grisly spectacles make a beeline to grab the pungent headlines. It is bad enough that the alleged rape occurred in the  campus sanctity, the accused, yet again, a staff.  Are more students being raped?  Are more rapes reported?  Has the definition of rape become diluted that more incidents being red-flagged? Is rape avoidance a feminine responsibility?  Or, are we failing collectively?

How is it that a three-year old tot was left alone for this to happen at any given point of time while at school?  Even when the child has to use the rest room she must be accompanied by a helper staff.  Someone knows the answer there.  Fortunately, the abuser cannot invoke the familiar defence that it had been consensual sex. 

While the recent beastly Delhi gang-rape is not yet fixed, more such heinous crimes are unfolding all over the country.  While the current laws and the concomitant loopholes enable abusers to escape punishment, many rape cases fail to result in rape law enforcement, thanks to the systemic inadequacies that render the criminal law ineffective in responding to and preventing such violence.  To get a conviction, current law requires prosecutors prove a suspect acted with “depraved indifference”, which is a high bar to clear, especially since most child abuse takes place in private.

A less-scrutinised explanation may be  the campus  grievance process itself  oriented towards the protection of perpetrators than the vindication of survivors. While the child abuse is more than a passing issue to be bantered about by talk show hosts, the community leaders must come up with preventive strategies.   It is not enough to warn a child to keep off strangers.  By now, we might have told our children about “good and bad touches”, but don’t miss to caution that it is often from someone we know and trust.  Keep an eye on a lesser known but growing category of molesters – children who perpetrate sexual crimes  upon children younger than themselves, as  nearly half of all sex offenders are juveniles. 

The common trouble spots include lack of a sexual assault response policy and underreporting of campus crime statistics.   Studies also indicate that victims who have not come to terms with the abuse they suffered as children, will, in time, repeat the same destructive patterns.  The educational institutions should adopt some promising practices to prevent and manage sexual assault.  The campus  programme should include comprehensive education about rape myths, common circumstances under which the crime occurs, prevention strategies, rape trauma responses….. along with a sexual assault policy clarifying all forms of sexual misconduct, and provide  reporting options. As campus grievance procedures are civil in nature, the sexual offenders are found “responsible”, not “guilty”.

The strongest punishment schools can deliver is to expel a rapist from campus which can be valid for cheating on a Physics final, not for a felony on par with murder.  Campus judicial systems aren’t designed to address that sort of defence.  A system run by corporates will always try to  put the school’s interests above that of the victims. Probing sexual assault complaints and meting out punishment should be a police matter, handled by personnel trained to deal with such highly complex cases, as these are tough crimes to investigate, as rape is more than a violation of campus discipline.

Students should be surveyed annually about sexual violence on campuses and the results made public and present a more accurate picture of campus life, while they  also must take responsibility for protecting themselves and be mindful that alcohol and drug use can lower their defence which can target them easy prey.

Beware of illusions

We owe it to our children to remember that the next generation of molesters is emerging from this generation.   Become aware of our own bias – our illusions that cloud our judgement by making us believe that we live in a much kindlier and gentler world than is really the case.  “Rape culture” is deemed as the set of widely held social and cultural beliefs that tend to make sexual abuse invisible and inevitable.  

Image courtesy: The Hindu

Few campus rapes are reported, fewer prosectuted. National Crimes Bureau Annual Report confirms that “rapes are committed in all states as well as the rapists belong to all castes, communities, colours and regions of India and abroad”, adding that “a woman is raped somewhere in India every 20 minutes , and the number of children raped has increased by 336 per cent  in the last 10 years”.

It is disturbing that our children are so trivialised  as to become the objects of exploitation and their innocence is sought to be destroyed for perverted greed.  When sexual violence occurs on campus and authorities fail to adequately respond, there is a fundamental breakdown in educational mission.  Men who treat women with respect can play a big role in preventing the crime.   Human Rights activists who fight capital punishment should propose meaningful inputs.  The children need to be protected, not labeled as tramps.

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