Jaagriti : Awakening Consciousness

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-04-08/justice/utah.offender.release_1_abuse-competency-status-hearing?_s=PM:CRIME

2011-11-06T20:25:00.000+05:30

A Utah judge has ordered a registered sex offender who faces nearly two dozen charges of child sex abuse released on the basis that he is mentally incompetent to stand trial.

At a hearing on Thursday, Fourth District Judge James Taylor, who previously ruled Lonnie Johnson incompetent to be tried on sex crime charges, said there were no legal grounds for holding him.

"We are at the end of the road...I can't do anything but have him released from the state hospital," Taylor said at Thursday's hearing.

Taylor said he was following a Utah statute requiring the release of anyone deemed incompetent to stand trial and who has not been convicted of a crime.

Johnson, 38, has been diagnosed with a cognitive disorder. Doctors who examined Johnson found his competency could not be restored. They also said he is not a danger to society and did not qualify for involuntary institutional commitment.

Johnson faces five counts of rape of a child, six counts of sodomy on a child and 10 counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, according to court documents.

In 2006, he was convicted of raping a teenage girl in Washington State, sent to prison for third-degree rape and served less than a year, according to court documents. He is required to register as a sex offender wherever he lives.

"I am outraged that a convicted child sex offender, currently facing another round of accusations, could be released without being tried for current charges," Utah Gov. Gary R. Herbert said.

"It's outrageous for both the victims and the accused that Mr. Johnson won't get his day in court," he said.

In November, a status hearing will be held under the judge's orders, and he will appoint two new doctors to evaluate Johnson.

Prosecutors have also filed a new motion asking the judge to reopen competency hearings in the criminal case.

"What I wanted to do was jump over and take care of it myself,'' said Christy Danner, whose daughter is an alleged victim of Johnson.

''But that's not what we can do and that's not the way our system works, and we're going to have to fix this system and then hopefully get him back in the state of Utah and find him competent,'' Danner said on HLN's "Nancy Grace."

Danner cited Johnson's previous ability to hold down jobs and earn a living, and said she thinks Johnson is faking incompetence.

Johnson allegedly abused Danner's daughter, who was his niece by marriage, for six years, starting at age eight in 1997. She is now 21.

Johnson's family has maintained his innocence, alleging the accusations are related to a bitter divorce case.

"We kind of knew going in today that he was going to be released so we were able to at least anticipate that," Danner said.

"But, yeah, we're not happy and the girls are feeling victimized again and our only thing is that we have to close this loophole."

Study: Most Child Abuse Goes Unreported

2011-11-06T20:23:00.000+05:30

Children in highly developed countries suffer abuse and neglect much more often than is reported by official child-protective agencies, according to the findings of the first in a comprehensive series of reports on child maltreatment, published Dec. 2 in the British medical journal The Lancet.

Based on a review of research conducted on child abuse between 2000 and June of this year, researchers estimate that 4% to 16% of children are physically abused each year in high-income nations, including the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. As many as 15% are neglected, and up to 10% of girls and 5% of boys suffer severe sexual abuse; many more are victims of other sexual injury. Yet researchers say that as few as 1 in 10 of those instances of abuse are actually confirmed by social-service agencies — and that measuring the exact scope of the problem is nearly impossible. (See the Year in Health, from A to Z.)

The issue lies in the delicate nature of the crimes — and the consequences of intervention. Many cases of abuse are rife with potential for long-term harm of the child, whether or not the assault is reported. The decision to report is rarely clear-cut, says Theresa Costello, director of the National Resource Center for Child Protective Services, who was not involved with the new research. "Professionals want to advocate for their clients, but they also know the reality of the public child-welfare system," she says. "There is a natural professional dilemma when you see a kid and you think, 'I should make a report,' but you're not sure you want to subject that child to the system."

Indeed, the second study in the Lancet analysis, citing previous research, reveals that physicians reported only 6% of children's injury cases to protective services, even though they suspected the injury was a result of abuse 10% of the time. Further, researchers say that many more cases of maltreatment — particularly of sexual abuse — are never even suspected, and the victimized children never come forward to report the assaults.

"The official statistics agencies produce are conservative estimates of probably the lowest level of child maltreatment," says Dr. Cathy Spatz Widom, a psychology professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who specializes in the long-term effects of child abuse and is a lead author on one of the Lancet studies.

Those numbers, researchers say, may now be on the rise. Historically, economic hardship has often corresponded with increases in child abuse, says Dr. Carole Jenny, a professor of pediatrics at Brown University and an expert in identifying and treating victims of child abuse, who authored a commentary in The Lancet. In the past six months, Jenny says she has seen increases in rates of maltreatment and heard similar reports from her colleagues. "I imagine that as the economy worsens, [child-abuse specialists are] only going to be more and more busy," she says, adding that the recession will likely mean less funding for already strained social services. "As the pressures on families are increasing markedly, the amount of help available goes down," she says.

The new research underscores the fact that the most common type of child abuse in developed countries — simple neglect — is often the least publicized. The Lancet analysis finds that neglect is the No. 1 category of maltreatment reported by child-protective services. "We have paid much more attention to physical and sexual abuse. We have called people's attention to it. Even though neglect is the largest portion of cases, it's under everybody's radar," Widom says. "And yet we know that neglected children are at as high a risk as physically abused kids for becoming violent offenders, for example, or having low reading ability." (See pictures of a diverse group of American teens.)

Widom points to years of past research linking early childhood abuse to an increased possibility of long-term behavioral and psychological problems, ranging from low educational achievement to criminal behavior, risky sexual practices and even increased chance of obesity. "Child maltreatment has long-lasting effects across multiple domains of functioning. It's not just in childhood. It lasts into adulthood, and we are not really thinking about these long-term consequences, and we're not planning for them," she says.

Yet there is no completely objective test for the presence of abuse. Identifying victimized children is often a subjective process, and caregivers may be wary of levying false accusations. Self-reports of abuse are frequently flawed and inaccurate as well, says Widom; they often produce the largest estimates of abuse incidence, but their definitions of maltreatment are overly broad. Even when children of abuse are correctly identified, not all caregivers know how to ensure their proper treatment. "There's no gold standard," Widom says.

There is an effort afoot to rectify that problem. Brown University's Jenny is one of roughly 250 pediatricians across the U.S. whose specialty is the identification and prevention of child abuse, and the field is gaining momentum — and standardization. By 2012, a three-year postresidency fellowship will be required of all new pediatricians who wish to specialize in child abuse. And the National Association of Children's Hospitals has advocated requiring all children's medical institutions to have a child-abuse specialist on staff.

The ultimate goal is to prevent abuse in the first place, says Widom, and to protect the well-being of children who have been victimized. "It would be wrong to assume that all maltreated children are going to turn out to have all of these problems," she says.

Cloistered Shame in Israel By TIM McGIRK/JERUSALEM

2011-11-06T20:21:00.000+05:30

Among Israel's ultra-orthodox Jews, the Haredim, social workers are often called "child-snatchers" and the police "Cossacks," harking back to the 19th century pogroms against Jews in Russia. These cloistered communities, in which women are expected to raise and financially support their large families while their husbands spend their days stooped over the Torah, make up 10% of Israel's population and a third of Jerusalem's, and consider themselves defenders of a core morality in Jewish society. But that moral authority has come under scrutiny since evidence began to emerge in March of incest, rape and child abuse in four different ultra-orthodox enclaves around the country.

Over the last few weeks the Cossacks have arrived wearing the uniform of the Israeli national police force. In a series of raids following tip-offs from victims' relatives, neighbors and hospital workers, the police have arrested ultra-orthodox wives, husbands and yeshiva students.

Community elders were at first appalled. Now they are grateful for the intervention. "The Haredim are shocked by these cases," says Noach Korman, a Haredi attorney in the rabbinical court that adjudicates family and religious law, and the director of a shelter for battered wives. "At first they said, 'These people are crazy, they don't belong to us.' But now I hear Haredi voices saying: 'We should examine ourselves and not close our eyes to why these things are happening.' "Says Naomi Ragen, an orthodox woman who is an author and advocate for gender equality: "These shocking things had to come out. There was no more room left under the carpet."

Sex predators operate with ease among the ultra-orthodox communities because female victims often keep quiet, knowing that to speak out will damage their prospects of finding a husband. "The families all want their girls to have a AAA marriage to a religious scholar from a good family, and nobody's going to marry a girl who gets raped," says Ragen. In Bnei Brak, a predominately Haredi city near Tel Aviv, social worker Doron Agasi says one young Haredi man told him that he had molested more than a hundred girls. Agasi, director of the Shlom Banaich Fellowship, the only organization in Israel that treats pedophiles and their victims, convinced the young man to confess to the police. But, says Agasi, the authorities refused to bring charges because none of the parents of the alleged victims had filed complaints. Agasi says the rapist is now roaming free.

Convincing the Haredi to work with police and social workers has been a struggle, says Miki Miller, a social worker in the newly built Haredi town of Kiryat Sefer near Jerusalem. "The Haredi believe that a closed society is a pure society," she says. But a closed society can hide a multitude of sins. A senior police officer in Jerusalem acknowledges that the instincts of the Haredi community to cover up such crimes undermines the authorities' ability to investigate and prosecute offenders: "We're aware of this phenomenon of sex abuse among Haredis, but an extremely low number of these cases are ever reported."

The first port of call for Haredi families faced with violence or sex crimes is often their rabbi. But religious leaders themselves have not been immune from accusations of abuse. On April 6, a Jerusalem court indicted a Haredi mother of eight for child abuse in light of evidence that she broke her two toddlers' bones with hammers, forced the children to eat feces, and locked them inside a suitcase for hours. The alleged abuses came to light only after her three-year-old son was taken to hospital in a coma with brain damage. The woman claimed she was driving "devils" from her children following instructions from her religious counselor Elior Chen, who has since fled to Canada. Israeli police are seeking his extradition.

In Beit Shemesh, a town near Jerusalem, another case of abuse centered on a self-styled female "rabbi" who hid her face entirely behind a black veil. Her religious modesty attracted dozens of Haredi female disciples over several years, but her own sister was frantically seeking police intervention to stop the woman from thrashing her children with a rolling pin. Neighbors say she allegedly left her kids tied for hours to a garden tree. After her arrest, one of her children, now an adult, told police that his mother had encouraged incest among her offspring when they were younger.

The majority of ultra-orthodox families are orderly and loving, but for some mothers, the stress of raising an average of seven to eight children while holding down a job is too much to handle. Haredi men place a higher value on spiritual learning than on money or possessions; devout husbands, who wear black hats and long-tailed coats modeled on those of 18th century Polish noblemen, are expected only to study. And when they are abusive, their wives often cover up to preserve the family's honor. Says Ragen: "You hear the Haredi women say: 'I took the stain on me so that my husband could be as white as snow.' "

Social workers at Jerusalem's shelter for battered Haredi women say that family violence often erupts during the ritual Shabbat dinner, when all children are gathered — tempers flare over mundane arguments and the husband strikes his wife. A wife may endure such treatment for years. But the number of women who call a 24-hour hotline for battered Haredi women has jumped from 477 calls in 2004 to 1,402 last year. Social workers attribute the increase to a new generation of rabbis urging women to speak out against domestic violence.

Yet many Jewish feminists say that women are more repressed than ever inside Israel's Haredi community. Anat Zuria, a respected filmmaker who focuses on the Haredim, says that many Haredi now believe that, according to Biblical prophecy, Judgment Day is fast approaching. "The Haredi are becoming more Messianic, and they believe the Messiah will only come if there's purity and modesty among women," she says. To that end, boys and girls are segregated early on. "Everything about sexuality is unmentionable," says Zuria. "There's no Internet, no TV, no books, but you can't kill off the erotic impulse." Author Ragen concurs: "All of these taboos don't necessarily make them saints. Sometimes they become perverts."

That realization is sinking in with some socially conscious rabbis. In Febuary, Rabbi Meir Kessler from Kiryat Sefer called two late-night meetings in which 3,000 parents were urged to warn their children that even men in beards and hats are capable of evil. The rabbi's candid sermon has stirred debate among the shuttered Haredim. One stunned participant told reporters that "not since Moses" had a rabbi spoken publicly on such forbidden sexual topics. The spate of abuse cases prompted Israel's chief Ashkenazi rabbi, Yona Metzger, to call on his fellow religious leaders "to vomit these parents and rabbis out of the camp and do everything in our power to save the souls of these young children."

More openness is the only way to catch offenders and root out the culture that permits them to operate. Teachers in some Haredi primary schools and yeshivas are now taught how to recognize such telltale sights of abuse as sudden moodiness or aggression, injuries or indecent behavior towards other students. In early spring, a teacher in the southern town of Nativot caught one child sexually accosting another. Social workers investigated and found that the boy's mother said she had sex with her child as a way to "punish" her husband for having left her.

It's hard to find positives in such stories. Yet it is better that they come to light than that they remain the dark secret of the Haredi. In Bnei Brak, police say one rapist in ultra-orthodox garb is stalking preteen girls, cornering them in dark hallways or in parks. It took weeks before religious elders alerted the police to the sexual predator, who has yet to be caught. But authorities say it is a sign of changing times that the Haredi children, and their parents, did not endure these crimes in silence.

Is Child Abuse On the Decline? By Laura Blue

2011-11-06T20:18:00.000+05:30

The number of maltreated children in the U.S. has fallen steadily in the last two decades, according to a report this week from the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.

Overall, physical-abuse cases per capita fell 3% between and 2007 and 2008 (the most recent year for which stats are available). Meanwhile sexual abuse fell by 6%, the report says. These figures continue long-term downward trends in the rate of physical and sexual abuse nationwide -- with most states reporting cumulative drops of over 50% since 1992 -- although neglect cases per capita seem to have remained fairly stable.

Sound too good to be true? All of that data comes from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, which began compiling the stats in 1990 from states' child-protection agencies. The numbers are based on "substantiated" abuse cases only -- where substantiated means that the cases were reported to a child-protection agency and investigated, and that the agency then found "a preponderance of evidence" to suggest maltreatment. But while it may sound as if the trend could be just a trick of the data then -- states could have simply decided to investigate fewer cases over time, for example -- the new report argues that the decline in abuse is very real. A separate study found similar declines in child abuse using different methods, according to the report: Researchers conducting the recent National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect talked to workers in schools, hospitals and day cares about abuse, without looking at state investigations at all. And victim self-reports show the same pattern too, with declines in the number of children reporting physical and sexual abuse throughout the 1990s and 2000s. It would appear, then, that the good news is genuine. There really is less child abuse than there used to be.

The report states:

There is currently no consensus in the child maltreatment field about why sexual abuse and physical abuse have declined so substantially, although a recent article and book suggest some possible factors (Finkelhor & Jones, 2006; Finkelhor, 2008). The period when sexual and physical abuse started the dramatic downward trend was marked by sustained economic improvement, increases in the numbers of law enforcement and child protection personnel, more aggressive prosecution and incarceration policies, growing public awareness about the problems, and the dissemination of new treatment options for family and mental health problems, including new psychiatric medication. While some have suggested community notification laws as a possible explanatory factor, the passage and implementation of these laws actually occurred well after the sexual abuse decline was underway.

Over the same 1990 - 2008 period, however, the number of neglect cases per capita has barely budged. The report suggests that this may be the case because neglect "has not been the subject of the same level of policy attention and public awareness as sexual and physical abuse."

Erin's Law: When the Abuser Is No Stranger Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2022124,00.html#ixzz1cwAyfHYM

2011-11-06T19:59:00.003+05:30

Throughout her school years, Erin Merryn of Schaumburg, Ill., received plenty of lessons in the dangers her elders thought she could encounter during her childhood. She was taught how to ride out a tornado, instructed in the eight steps for turning down illegal drugs, and told how to react to a friendly stranger who might try to abduct her. But nothing prepared her for two traumatizing events that have turned Merryn, now 25, into an activist, determined to prevent the same thing from happening to other children.

The first episode began on a warm May night in 1991. Merryn, then 6, was excited about her first sleepover with her kindergarten classmate Ashley. After an evening of playing with Ashley's dollhouse and watching The Little Mermaid, the girls went to bed in Ashley's room. Merryn lay on blankets on the floor next to Ashley, who was in her bed. In the wee hours of the night, Ashley's uncle "Richard" (not his real name), who lived in the house with his niece, appeared in the darkened room. He sat down in front of Merryn and put his finger to his lips signaling her to remain quiet. Seconds later his hand was down her pants. Merryn was as bewildered as she was frightened. "I didn't understand what was going on," she says. "I just stared at the ceiling waiting for it to end." Her friend slept through the assault, and Merryn remained silent. (Read why most child abuse goes unreported)

Merryn kept her confusion to herself. She didn't want to stop visiting her friend but tried to find times when Richard wasn't around. She wasn't always successful. The man, then in his late 20s, abused her several more times in the next year, including, she says, raping her during a daytime visit when she thought he wouldn't be home.

When Merryn eventually confided in Ashley about what had happened, her friend was not surprised; in fact, the scene was depressingly familiar to her. But Ashley begged her not to say anything because Richard had told her they would "lose the house" if the girls told anyone. Says Merryn: "[Ashley] made me pinky promise not to say anything."

Merryn's family, including her two sisters, moved to another neighborhood in the same town when Merryn was 8, and she stopped seeing Ashley. But at age 11, Merryn's second nightmare began. At a family gathering at her grandparents' lake house, she awoke in the middle of the night to find her cousin "Brian" (again, not his real name), then 13, lying next to her with his hands down her underwear. He continued to abuse her on and off for nearly two years, she says, often at holidays and celebrations with her close-knit extended family. He cornered her in basements, bathrooms and bedrooms, always reminding her that she shouldn't bother telling anyone because no one would believe her. It ended only after a chance conversation between Merryn and one of her sisters, who blurted out one day that their cousin Brian was "gross." Merryn realized he had been molesting her sister too. They talked for hours about what had happened, and the next day told their parents about their shared horror.

The family pressed charges against Brian, who ultimately admitted to three counts of sexual abuse. The case never went to trial, and Brian received some counseling, but no punishment. The two families have ceased having contact.

Merryn's experiences belie the more common parental fears of "stranger danger." Young children tend to hear a lot of messages about avoiding interactions with people they don't know, when in reality they are far more likely to face harm from a relative or family friend. Victims of abuse know their perpetrators 80% to 90% of the time, says David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.

For a long time, Merryn didn't know what to do with her anger and fear as an abused child. She spent one afternoon at a park breaking discarded bottles. She didn't tell any adults what had happened to her. "I didn't realize that what had happened wasn't my fault. I didn't know the difference between a safe and an unsafe secret," Merryn says. Later, she helped herself heal by writing two books about her experiences (Stolen Innocence and Living for Today).

Now she is moving into political action. Earlier this year, Merryn reached out to Illinois legislators about the need for schools to adopt age-appropriate curriculum on child sexual abuse. Republican state senator Tim Bivins championed what became known as "Erin's Law," which passed the state senate unanimously. The legislation, which is expected to be taken up by the House in November, would create a task force to devise strategies for reducing child sexual abuse throughout the state and permit school boards to implement similar measures. The aim is to bring into the classroom (for students from pre-K through fifth grade) what is seldom discussed openly: that even trusted family members and friends can pose a threat to their well-being. Teachers would also be trained to recognize warning signs that their students have been sexually abused, including mood swings or acting distant at odd times, and be able to tell students where to go for assistance if they have been victimized.

A poised and charismatic speaker, Merryn has traveled the country making speeches to law-enforcement and abuse-prevention groups. And she will soon tell her story on Oprah, which she hopes will give her effort the jolt it needs to become a nationwide movement.

Erin's Law would not be the first statewide effort to tackle this issue. Ohio and New Jersey have statewide mandates to implement abuse-prevention programs in their schools, according to Finkelhor, and Texas passed a similar prevention measure in 2009. The problem, Finkelhor says, is getting schools to focus on the issue at a time when resources are limited and their priorities are on beefing up academic programs — which has put ancillary efforts such as anti-bullying and mental-health issues on the back burner. "I don't think schools would be resistant to the idea that this prevention is needed," he says. "But there are so many other demands on them these days." Nor are they likely to have the resources to provide the kind of intensive curriculum that is necessary. A guest speaker for 45 minutes wouldn't be very helpful, says Finkelhor: "The best programs are very intensive and expensive."(Read about a child abuse case in Vietnam.)

The attention on sexual abuse of children in recent years, along with increases in the numbers of law-enforcement and child-protection personnel, has made an impact. According to Finkelhor, national child maltreatment data show that the rate of sex abuse against children under 18 declined 58% between 1992 and 2008, when the number of substantiated cases was reported to be a still disturbing 68,500. As Finkelhor notes, "It's still a major source of trauma and long-term dysfunction in children."

Merryn, who got a master's degree in social work, focusing on sexual-abuse prevention, is determined to keep up her campaign to make her cause a national movement. "I don't want parents to think they need to put a bubble around their kids 24/7," she says. "We need to give kids the knowledge and tools they need to come forward when something happens. I had my innocence taken. I don't want it to happen to anyone else."

'World's largest paedophile ring' uncovered

2011-03-17T02:21:00.004+05:30

By Dominic Casciani

BBC News home affairs correspondent

16 March 2011 Last updated at 15:27 GMT

International police led by a UK team say they shut down the largest internet paedophile ring yet discovered.

The global forum had 70,000 followers at its height, leading to 4,000 intelligence reports being sent to police across 30 countries.

The operation has so far identified 670 suspects and 230 abused children.

Detectives say 184 people have been arrested - 121 of them were in the UK. Some 60 children have been protected in the UK.

The three-year investigation, Operation Rescue, was led by investigators from the UK's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop).

Speaking at a news conference at The Hague in the Netherlands, investigators said the network hid behind a legal online forum which operated out of the country - but its members came from around the world.

The international network operated out of the Netherlands

Along with the Netherlands and the UK, suspects have been identified in Australia, Italy, Canada, New Zealand and Thailand.

The members of the network went into a private channel, boylover.net, and then used its secret systems to share films and images of abused children, said Rob Wainwright, director of European police agency Europol.

However, child abuse investigators, including a team from Ceop, had already infiltrated the network and were posing as paedophiles to gather intelligence.
In the UK, the 240 suspects include police officers, teachers and a karate teacher. One of the suspects in the UK is a woman.

To date, 33 have been convicted, including John McMurdo, a scout leader from Plymouth. Another forum user was Stephen Palmer, 54, of Birkenhead, who shared abuse images with contacts in the US. A third man, 46-year-old Colin Hoey Brown of Bromsgrove, was jailed for making and distributing almost 1,000 images.

'New ground broken'

Peter Davies, head of Ceop, said: "The scale and success of Operation Rescue has broken new ground.

"Not only is it one of the largest operations of its kind to date - and the biggest operation we have led - it also demonstrates the impact of international law enforcement agencies working together with one single objective, to safeguard children and bring offenders to justice.

"While these offenders felt anonymous in some way because they were using the internet to communicate, the technology was actually being used against them.
"Everything they did online, everyone they talked to or anything they shared could and was tracked by following the digital footprint."

Operation Rescue began when Ceop and colleagues in the Australian Federal Police separately identified the site as a key online meeting place for abusers.

The two forces deployed officers to infiltrate the site and to identify the members who were posing the most risk to children.

One of the early breakthroughs in the investigation was the arrest of four suspects in Thailand in 2008. Two of the men were British.

In March of the same year, Ceop identified the owner of the site and the location of its server in the Netherlands. The owner of the server is now co-operating with Dutch police.

Rob Wainwright of Europol said the man running the server had used "advanced security techniques" which took months to break down.

"If you think you can use the internet to abuse children you are wrong," he said.
"We will not allow these offenders to carry on committing these awful crimes against young children. We will not rest until we have identified every offender that has been active in this network and others that might be operating on the internet."

Analysis

Danny Shaw

Home affairs correspondent,

BBC News

The internet has proved to be fertile territory for people with a sexual interest in children.

Those wishing to explore their feelings or satisfy their urges can spend hours doing so without having to leave their room. Taking advantage of the anonymity modern computer technology provides, paedophiles download and exchange vile images of abuse unaware of the reality of the suffering.

For some years, however, child protection agencies have been on their case. By pretending to be online sex offenders and by using sophisticated computer techniques, they've managed to identify offenders and locate suspect websites. So it was with Operation Rescue.

What marks it out is its global scale. But in UK terms, it still lags behind Operation Ore - an investigation into 7,000 people from Britain whose credit cards were used to access child abuse images on a US website.

[Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12762333 ]

Toddlers taught about good touch, bad touch

2010-11-29T15:54:00.003+05:30

Santacruz school uses slideshow to protect kindergarten students from paedophiles

Deepti Khera

Mumbai Mirror

Posted On Monday, November 29, 2010 at 02:02:17 AM

With the recent allegation that a EuroKids teacher molested a toddler, Podar Education Network has decided to educate children as young as three to five years of age on how to distinguish a good touch from a bad touch.

Images shown to students from Podar Jumbo kids; Red tells kids about private parts

The Santacruz school recently showed a CD with a powerpoint presentation – of an animated elephant helping children identify an uncomfortable overture from an adult- to its Kindergarten students. The CD was also shared with parents of toddlers and bus attendants, who interact with children daily. The presentation tells children about the parts of their body and teaches them which ones they should not allow others to touch.

Red is used to alert them about private parts. The presentation also talks about who can touch them - parents, grandparents, doctors - and who they should be wary of - in this case lift attendants, drivers. The CD is interactive and seeks feedback from its young viewers so they learn to identify what makes them uncomfortable.

For instance, a child who likes being tickled gives it a thumbs up and a child who doesn’t gives it a thumbs down. It helps them recognise if they like a certain gesture or not and express their discomfort.

Swati Popat Vats, president of Podar Education Network, said the school plans to take this presentation to other institutions as well. “We have written a letter to principals of several schools and are hoping they show this path-breaking CD to young children.”

Sonia Gada, a parent said, “It is difficult for me to articulate what I know about this to my child. The graphics and the cartoon have taught my child what I couldn’t teach.”

Harish Iyer, activist and survivor of child sex abuse, said, “Had I known these things when I was six, I would not have been sexually abused. We should not be squeamish in letting children know the names of their body parts so they have the vocabulary to express themselves.”

Samir Dalwai, who is associated with the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, said, “It is extremely important to discuss the issue of child sex abuse with children. The CD educates children in an appealing, friendly and a non-threatening manner.”

Child abuse on the rise

A study on child sexual abuse conducted in 13 states by the Ministry of Women and Child Development in 2007 shows that out of the 12,447 children interviewed, more than 53 per cent had faced one or more forms of sexual abuse. The figures were published in a report titled, Child Abuse : India 2007

• More than 53 per cent children interviewed during the study faced one or more forms of sexual abuse

• Almost 22 per cent faced severe sexual abuse, 6 per cent sexually assaulted

• 50 per cent sexual offenders were known to the victim or were in positions of trust (family member, close relative, friend or neighbour).

• Children in the 5-12 year's group faced higher levels of abuse that were largely unreported.

• Boys were equally at risk as girls.

•   73 per cent of the victims were in age groups of 11 to 18 years

Slideshow says...

•   Whatever a child is comfortable with is called a safe touch

•   What a child is uncomfortable with is called unsafe or bad touch

•   It is not okay for anyone to touch your private parts

•   If you are abused, it is not your fault, tell your parents about it

Childline: 1098

-------

[ Source: Click here ]
[Link to the Report of the National Survey "Child Abuse : India 2007" : Click here]

How Can I ‘Be Myself’ If I Don’t Know Who That Is?

2010-10-02T06:10:00.000+05:30

Sep 30th, 2010 | By Christina Enevoldsen | Category: All Posts, Christina's Blog

“In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it.” Michelangelo

It’s completely fascinating to me to consider how Michelangelo created. The sculptor imagined the finished work before he lifted the chisel to the stone. He didn’t see the marble block; he saw the image underneath. He recognized what it was, and then simply removed what it was not.

I’m no Michelangelo, but I am creating a masterpiece—or rather, revealing one. My childhood sexual abuse encased me in a false identity and covered me in a shroud of lies. My false self wasn’t stone, but it imprisoned me just the same. My healing process is the chiseling away at the falsehoods to free my true self.

The trouble is that I’ve never had the clarity of Michelangelo. The only Christina I’ve ever known was the one who adapted to the abuse. The lies entrapped me for so long that I felt I didn’t exist apart from them. How could I have a vision for someone I’ve never seen? That was my question when I began my healing. I didn’t know the answer but I was determined to rescue my true image just as the great artist rescued his beauties from the stone.

The lies were layered. First, the abuse told me lies about myself and then I told other lies about myself to cover up the first lies. The lies from the abuse told me I was only good for sex, that I was somehow flawed as a person, too dirty and used for someone to love me. I wasn’t aware that it was the abuse that told me that. I thought I was abused because those things were already true. I thought I was inherently worthless so I deserved to be passed around.

I reacted to those lies by trying to ‘prove’ they weren’t true. I knew they were—they were true to me—but I was hoping people would be fooled by my facade. One of my false selves was the “hard worker”. I projected an image of responsibility, maturity, and dependability. It was my uniform that informed people that they needed to keep me around because I was useful. The more shame I felt and the more I thought my masks were ‘slipping’, the more I asserted them. They became hardened around me. I didn’t know where they stopped and I began.

As I recognized that I was misinformed about my value, I shed the lies. The truth is that I am valuable because I exist. My value isn’t affected by what happened to me. I didn’t do those things; they were done to me and it was not a reflection on me. It wasn’t because I was bad. It was because my abusers were bad. I don’t have anything to conceal anymore because I’m wonderfully made.

I thought I needed to perceive who I was supposed to be before I could make myself into that image. The truth is that I don’t need to see or ‘make’ myself into anything. I am who I am. I was so used to contorting myself into certain roles that I thought I would ‘achieve’ the real me the same way. All I’ve really needed to do is remove the lies. Then the truth is revealed.

The real me is emerging. I’m learning more about myself every day and the sense of wonder and excitement and expectation fill me. The real me is coming out without even really thinking about it. It’s natural and unrehearsed. It’s effortless. As I heal and the masks fall off, the genuine Christina is revealed. She’s been there all along.

It’s ironic that I thought I’d prove my value by covering myself up, yet a work of art can only be appreciated when it can be seen. The healing process is referred to as recovery, but I’ve been covered up long enough and I don’t want to be re-covered. Maybe it’s more accurate to call this my uncovery—the grand unveiling of this masterpiece. BEAUTIFUL!

Watch '30 Days in September' and support Arpan

2010-09-19T18:44:00.000+05:30

Hi,

Arpan presents '30 Days in September'
(A Primetime Theatre Company Production)
Scripted by: Mahesh Dattani & Directed by: Lillete Dubey

Date: 2nd october, 2010. Time: 7:30 - 9:30 pm.

Please see details below.

We hope you will support Arpan by removing some time on 2nd October to come and watch the play. Please block this date and time in your calendar!

You could also buy bulk passes and have your colleagues from companies, organisations, schools come in to watch the play. Help spread awareness on child sexual abuse and support Arpan!

We look forward to seeing you! Please do forward this to your contacts in Bombay and help spread the word around.

Thank you!

Warm wishes,
Pooja Taparia

Tulir workshops - Focus on Prevention

2010-07-19T14:17:00.006+05:30

Hello!

Greetings from Tulir - Centre For The Prevention & Healing of Child Sexual Abuse, is a registered non profit Trust, based in Chennai, committed to working against child sexual abuse (CSA) in India. Tulir's vision is the right of every child to be safe all the time from sexual abuse. Our programming is grounded in a zealous belief of awareness, prevention, and community and professional response sector involvement.

With prevention increasingly gaining recognition as the most prudent and cost effective strategy for addressing child sexual abuse, we are pleased to invite you for a Workshop Series focusing on prevention. It will be led by our Visiting Expert in Residence, Prof. Carol Plummer, who besides working on many aspects of child sexual abuse over the past 30 years, has also authored Preventing Sexual Abuse, a prevention curriculum. More information about Dr Plummer is available at www.carolplummer.net

The series ( details pasted below), are spread over 5 days between Aug. 2 - Aug 6, at Chennai and will cost Rs. 2000/- per person and will be in English. For students pursuing a formal course of education, discounts are available. Vegetarian lunch, tea and workshop materials will be provided. Registration is limited to the first 50 persons against advance payment and will close by July 30, 2010. It is mandatory that participants attend the entire series to benefit optimally.

Please contact tulircphcsa@yahoo.co.in or call 26192026 (10 am - 6 pm, Monday – Friday) for further details. We will be glad to clarify any further related queries.

Cheers

Tulir

WORKSHOP OUTLINE:

Day 1: The Essentials of Child Sexual Abuse Prevention: What it is, why it is necessary, and how you can help

Learn about comprehensive approaches to sexual abuse prevention

Understand the importance of prevention efforts

Determine concrete ways in which you can become more engaged with keeping children safe

Day 2: Building a Prevention Program within your Agency or Organization

Learn the steps in expanding your work to include prevention efforts

Essential ingredients for program success

Policy efforts, evidence-based practice, and evaluation of programs

Day 3: School Based Prevention Education on Child Sexual Abuse

Ways to involve schools in child sexual abuse prevention

Barriers to successful school-based programs

Overcoming challenges in your school

Day 4: Working with High Risk Groups, including children with disabilities

What groups of children are at particularly high risk for being abused?

Involving adults, including bystanders, in intervening on behalf of children

Challenges and successes in working with children with disabilities

Day 5: Addressing Trauma in Children

Assessing for traumatic reactions

Crisis intervention versus longer term interventions

Working with multiple traumas in a child/community

Best practices for work with traumatized children

Child sex abuse bill in monsoon session

2010-07-06T17:05:00.004+05:30

Special Courts Likely To Try Offenders

5.7.10

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai: The government is planning to table and pass in the next session of parliament a law to prevent sexual assault of children, Union law minister Veerappa Moily said on Sunday.

On June 30, TOI ran a story about the government planning an exclusive law to protect children from sexual assault and also that a special court will be set up to try such cases.

The Protection of Children From Sexual Assault Bill, 2010, seeks to protect children against offences of sexual assault and harassment more effectively than is possible under the provisions of Indian Penal Code. It will also eliminate ambiguity in defining crimes, make special courts with special powers mandatory for speedy trial, and overrule the need to obtain permission to penalise personnel of armed forces. The special courts will be appointed by the state governments and will have jurisdiction to try cases relating to child pornography.

“We have prepared the second working draft and will table and pass it in the next session of parliament as a separate law is inevitable. The government also hopes that all parties will extend their support in passing the bill,’’ he said. He was taking part in a discussion here on “Law reform and legislation on sexual offences against children’.

He also handed over the second draft of the bill and requested the participants to discuss and suggest changes and additions as early as possible because “we feel that there should be transparency in formulating the law’’.

In 4 years, no case will last over 3 years: Moily

Chennai: Steps are being taken to tone up the justice delivery system so that no litigation lasts beyond three years. And it will take four years for the measures to take effect. Talking to reporters after a meeting chief justices, law ministers and officials from the four southern states here, Union law minister M Veerappa Moily said the hefty grant of Rs 5,000 crore to upgrade infrastructure in the judiciary and steps like advancing the process of filling up posts even before they fall vacant and increasing the use of alternative dispute resolution forums would have the effect of reducing backlog of cases and bringing down litigation time. “In about four years, any litigation, of whatever kind, will not be prolonged beyond three years,’’ the law minister said. TNN

Zindagi Live episode on Child Sexual Abuse

2010-03-31T01:03:00.005+05:30

Hi,

Zindagi Live, IBN7 tells the story of four survivors of CSA, what happened to them, how they fought through it, how the abuse has affected their lives, and how can sexual abuse of children be prevented or dealt with.

Watch this epsiode at this link:

http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/112272/03_2010/zindagilive_28march1/is-your-child-being-sexually-abused.html

There are 8 clips. Please watch in sequence.

Amrita.

Six out of every 554 street children in Kolkata are HIV+, says NICED

2010-03-23T21:08:00.002+05:30

Tue, Mar 23 05:25 PM

Kolkata, March 23 (ANI): A study conducted by the National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED) has found at least six out of every 554 street children in the age group of five to fourteen in Kolkata are HIV positive, while 22 suffer from syphilis.

Kolkata has an estimated number of over 11,000 street children.

Sexual abuse was identified as the main cause for these children suffering from sexually transmitted diseases. Nine per cent of the children interviewed during the study reported some form or other of sexual abuse. The children didn't even know that they had these diseases.

According to Dr Kamalesh Sarkar, Deputy Director, Division of Epidemiology, National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED), random blood samples taken during the study had revealed that from HIV to Hepatitis-B and VDRL, the children had it all. While one per cent of the children were HIV positive, four per cent had syphilis and six per cent had Hepatitis-B.

The problem lies in the fact that being homeless, they fail to come within the purview of any intervention programmes. Nor do they have access to sustained health care.

Dr Sarkar said that no case of AIDS was detected in the children, adding that the disease took about 10 years to become full blown after the initial HIV infection.

AIDS might take on epidemic proportions amongst the pavement dwellers in that period of time, considering the rampant sexual abuse and lack of awareness and health care. The high incidence of sexually transmitted diseases among street children is poised to become a serious health hazard in future.

Research assistant Baishali Bal pointed out that girls over the age of 15 reported higher incidence of sexual abuse when they stepped out of their homes to find work while boys were physically abused when young by older boys on the streets. About 30 per cent of the children also reported non-tobacco substance abuse.

Most of these children are either beggars, rag pickers, vendors, shoe-shiners, car cleaners or porters and about 85 per cent slept in public places like pavements, railway stations, under flyovers etc.

The study found that while majority of these children had either one or both parents, they lacked family ties or bonding, love, care and guidance, leading to increased risk behaviour like substance abuse, crime and violence.

The NICED has proposed setting up of night shelters and support centres for the street children at the public places where they stay so that proper health care and social intervention can be carried out.

There are an estimated 300 million street children across the world, struggling for survival without access to food, shelter and proper clothing.

According to the estimates of the Asian Development Bank, about 25 million children are living on the streets in Asia. India has the world's largest concentration of street children.

By Ajitha Menon (ANI)

[ Thanks to Sagnik for the link to this article at

http://in.news.yahoo.com/139/20100323/824/tnl-six-out-of-every-554-street-children.html

]

10-yr-old girl molested in tony South Mumbai club

2010-03-03T21:59:00.006+05:30

Somendra Sharma. Mumbai. Mar 3, 2010

A 10-year-old Parsi girl, who had gone to the posh Breach Candy Club for a swim on Sunday, was allegedly molested by a 19-year-old boy. The alleged molester, who was trying to flee after the incident, was caught by a few foreigners and handed over to the police. He has been identified as Imadultullah Hasantullah.

According to the Gamdevi police, the incident occurred on Sunday night when the complainant and his family had come to the club at Bhulabhai Desai Road in Breach Candy for a swim. He is a member of Breach Candy Club.

"After swimming, the family went to have dinner in the club house, while their 10-year-old daughter remained near the pool. This is when Hasantullah pulled the girl towards him and molested her," said a police official, requesting anonymity.

The official added that the incident occurred at around 8.30pm.

"After some time, the girl went to her parents and narrated the entire incident to them; after this, they went to the spot. On seeing the girl's parents, Hasantullah tried to flee but some foreigners caught him," said the official.

No details were available about the suspect. All the police said was that Hasantullah was an Indian believed to have arrived from abroad around 10 days ago.

He has been arrested and an offence of molestation, under section 354 of the Indian Penal Code, has been registered. He was produced before a local court on Monday for police remand. The club officials refused to comment on the incident.

[Source: http://epaper.dnaindia.com/epapermain.aspx?queryed=9&querypage=1&boxid=30694820&parentid=111568&eddate=03/03/2010 ]

HOPE RAN and the difference it made

2010-01-17T20:46:00.006+05:30

As you know not only did adult surivovors of CSA share their stories with Harish during the 'HOPE RUNS' campaign, but also when they saw him running with the placard today during the marathon.

Harish said, “One man just out of the blue hugged me and started crying, I asked him if he knew me and if I can be of any help to him."

He simply replied, “Thank You”.

Harish wondered why this stranger was thanking him, he thought it was a case of mistaken identity. When Harish asked him further the stranger replied, “I am a survivor of child sexual abuse too.” Saying so, he again hugged Harish and revealed that he had not shared it with anybody, but today for the first time with a stranger. He smiled and vanished into the crowd.

Everything can't be measured and valued... some differences are just immeasurable and invaluable... that moment was one of them....

See attached a photo of how HOPE RAN! : ' )

We got covered today by the Times of India, Radio Mirchi, IBN 7 and NDTV 24 X 7.

Today's Times of India (Mumbai edition), pg 29 carries Harish's story.

Thank you everyone for all your support and best wishes.

***********
Pooja Taparia
Founder and CEO
Arpan - Towards Freedom from Child Sexual Abuse
mobile: +91.98201.35567
email: pooja@arpan.org.in
office: 2nd floor, unit no. 24, 105, Apollo Street, Mumbai Samachar Marg, Mumbai 400 023
website: www.arpan.org.in
blog: www.arpancsa.blogspot.com
facebook: arpan
You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfmo8kjezs8
Karmayog - http://www.karmayog.org/ngo/arpan/
***********

Major role for schools in preventing child abuse

2009-11-27T00:03:00.007+05:30

By Meera Srinivasan

Friday, Nov 20, 2009

Experts believe that sustaining such efforts is real issue

Schools should pay attention to their screening and recruitment process

CHENNAI: Several events were organised in the city on Thursday to mark the ‘World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse.’ However, some activists and experts believe that sustaining such efforts is the real issue. They feel every day ought to be a ‘prevention of child abuse day’.

From abusing children emotionally for “poor academic performance” to sexual abuse, many children are being subjected to a lot of abuse, if reports of incidents highlighting these are an indication. But, there is something everyone can do to prevent this.

For instance, Lady Andal Matriculation School has been taking several efforts in this direction. In particular, it lays emphasis on generating awareness of child sexual abuse (CSA). Vice-principal Rathi Radhakrishnan says: “Everyone tends to brush such things under the carpet, saying child sexual abuse should not be there in schools. But, the truth is that it is there. Acknowledging the possibility [of CSA] is very important.”

From inviting experts in the field to address students, to sensitising teachers, the school has been taking up several efforts. “We even address the little ones in our Montessori sections about who can hug them, and how they should identify inappropriate, unacceptable behaviour of adults.”

Jayashree Padmanabhan, principal of Gill Adarsh Matriculation School, also thinks it is important for children to be given opportunities to speak out. “We wanted to know their opinion on child abuse and we organised events such as oratorical contest, debate and slogan-writing competition today [Thursday]. They came up with some very insightful thoughts.”

Underlying the role of schools in creating awareness, Tulir — Centre for the Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse has initiated ‘Daring to Care,’ a school-based campaign.

The initiative seeks to rope in city schools into the space of prevention of CSA. “Many schools have been extremely cooperative. Some have even distributed flyers to their kindergarten children with their school’s logo on them,” says Vidya Reddy, executive director, Tulir. Safe schools acknowledge and accept the possibility of abuse in and out of school. “They talk about it, giving children a notion of their safety,” she adds.

Schools should pay attention to their screening and recruitment process. “They have to see what kind of training is given to teachers on child protection, what measures are taken to maintain safety in schools, whether there is a code of conduct and questions such as, How do you report an allegation of abuse? And how do you address it?”

Complaint cell

The School Education Department launched a complaint cell (Number: 28273591) two years ago. According to a senior official at the Directorate of School Education, the cell does get calls from students reporting sexual abuse. “But, the number of such calls has come down.” The Chief Education Officers have been given instructions to deal with such cases “responsibly.” And responsibly would have to be taking the matter to the police immediately, and not merely transferring teachers, which is a common practice, say activists.

Interest to spread the message from different quarters is a promising sign. An online network of mothers, www.chennaimoms.com, has been sending out messages to parents on the possibility for abuse online and the need for Internet safety. “Many children spend considerable time online. Many parents said they did not know that such threats existed and seemed happy to become aware,” says Bhavani Raman, founder, chennaimoms.com.

[Source: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/11/20/stories/2009112058380200.htm ]

9-year-old files case of rape against dad

2009-11-04T20:27:00.005+05:30

04/11/2009

A depraved man raped his helpless 9-year-old daughter in Mumbai for two years and even sold her to his friends. Finally, the girl’s grandfather took courage and helped the girl file a case. Apart from this painful and shocking case in today’s crime file, there are the cases of an MD who had an itch to steal, a human sacrifice in IT city of Hyderabad and a BPO who jumped to death in Bangalore. Read on.

Father, friends arrested for abusing young girl

In a depressing and shocking case, a 9-year-old girl in Mumbai has filed a complaint of rape against her father. The girl filed the case with the help of her grandfather.

In the horrifying complaint, the girl described how her father, Chhatish Das (33), and friends allegedly raped her for over two years, made her bones ache and sent her through hell.

The police have now arrested Das and two others -- Ashok Sahu and Shabbir Syyed.

The girl is half Cambodian and does not have any relatives from her mother's side in Mumbai. She first poured out her woes to her grandmother who informed her husband. The grandfather took her to the police station and helped her file a complaint against his own son.

According to the police, Das worked as an electrician in Cambodia and fell in love with a local woman. They got married in 2002 and had a daughter. Three years after marriage, he left his wife and returned to India. A year later, his wife sent their daughter to India.

Das's parents had thrown him out of their house for marrying without their consent. But when Das pushed his daughter to the streets to beg, they let him and the girl stay in their house in Kandivli (W).

The girl told the police that her father had forced her to have sex with him. He then started bringing in his friends and on several occasions took money in exchange for sex.

One day the girl telephoned her grandfather and complained that her father was ill-treating her. The elderly man then sent the child and her grandmother to his village. There the girl took courage to describe the trauma she had been undergoing. The shocked grandmother brought the little girl to Mumbai and told her husband about it.

The man then took the girl to the local police station and helped her file a complaint.

Senior police inspector P S Gawande of Charkop police station told the local press that the girl's story was big shock to her grandparents . The couple discussed it for a couple of days and then decided to file a police complaint on Tuesday .

The elderly couple said they were also victims to brutality as Das beat them regularly while under the influence of alcohol. The couple eventually asked Das to leave their flat with his daughter.

[ Source: http://news.in.msn.com/crimefile/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3349802 ]

[Thanks to Sagnik for the link]

Support Laws against Child Sexual Abuse

2009-10-30T00:40:00.006+05:30

Hi all,

ELAAN has put together a petition, targeted at the Indian Parliament and Law Commision of India, for laws against CSA. This is a BIG step, and it needs all our support. Go sign the petition at the link below:

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/law-against-child-sexual-abuse.html

Thanks,

Amrita.

16-year-old raped by dad, uncle

2009-08-25T09:43:00.002+05:30

(Please click on blog title to read the actual article from the Times Of India)

NAGPUR: The story of a pregnant 16-year-old girl, rescued by neighbours of Vandevi slums recently from the clutches of her 35-year-old father,

brought to the fore the grotesque brutality she was made to undergo at home. She has been suffering at the hands of her uncle and then herfather for years in Uttar Pradesh and later in city. Neetu (name changed), joined the ranks of the hapless girls who were not spared by the persons whom they trusted the most.

Neetu had lost her mother Chanda when she was just an infant. She desperately looked upon her father to rescue her from an uncle in Uttar Pradesh who was exploiting her repeatedly. Her father did ‘rescue’ her in 2008, but allegedly started forcing himself upon her.

The pregnant girl, sick and mentally upset, is now sheltered at government’s girls’ hostel. Yashodhara Nagar police have arrested father Gurucharan Yadav, alias Gopal, on Sunday. Yadav was nearly lynched by Vandevi Nagar residents before police saved him. He is reminiscent of Austria’s dungeon dad Josef Fritzl and Mumbai businessman Kishore Chowdhury.

The girl, whose case is similar to that of a teenager from Hingna who had indicted her father for rape recently, has named her dad and his younger brother as tormentors.

Neetu had studied till eighth standard in Sultanpur in Uttar Pradesh and was keen to continue further. Though the account of her early years could not be known, it is learnt that Neetu had to strive hard to survive since her mother died and father remarried. She had to work as domestic help too.

Yadav left his daughter and migrated to city some years ago. He started earning his livelihood as an auto-rickshaw driver. Meanwhile, he had a son and a daughter from his second wife Nirmala. Neighbours claimed Nirmala, apparently left disgusted by Yadav lifestyle, left him.

“We were curious about the girl. Yadav said she was his daughter. Once I went to see what was going on inside the shanty and was aghast to find him (Yadav) in his towel. There were two pillows on the bed,” said neighbour Noorjahan Quereshi adding that she was sensing some foul play as the girl was never allowed to mingle much with others.

The matter came to fore when Farzana Banoo, another neighbour, was approached by the distraught girl who told Banoo she needed help. “Her father (Yadav) had once urged me to look after her as she was not well. I was shocked when she told me her father was having physical relations with her. I immediately urged her to stop coming to me as it was against my religious belief and there are children who come for spiritual lesson at home,” said Banoo.

They could ignore no longer when the girl started having ill-health. Yadav and three neighbours-- Quereshi, Shaikh Raju and Hamida Begum-- took Neetu to a health centre at Shanti Nagar. She was referred to another clinic at Kamal chowk. There she was discovered to be pregnant.

“We approached the girl the following day in absence of her father to know the truth,” said a neighbour adding that the girl was being sheltered at different places in city including Pension Nagar before she was brought here. “She divulged the facts,” said the neighbour.

She also told them her uncle had raped her repeatedly when his wife was away at native place for delivery. “Yadav and the girl were away from home for a day. When they returned, we challenged Yadav and contacted the police,” neighbour Raju said.

Senior inspector Rajendra Pardesi, in-charge of Yashodhara Nagar police station, said that police wanted to concentrate on the culprit (Yadav) who is in the custody. “It would be better if we decide to make a strong case out of the apprehended culprit and not make it too complicated,” said Pardeshi indicating he did not intent to pursue Yadav’s younger brother although the girl has clearly named him too.

A letter to my non-survivor friends: things I want to tell you but don't know how

2009-08-01T20:21:00.006+05:30

Hi,

Found this piece really moving. Thanks to Askios for the link.

http://community.feministing.com/2009/04/a-letter-to-my-non-survivor-fr.html

Shared via AddThis

FACSE invites all to the open meeting on 25th Aug, '09 in Mumbai

2009-08-01T19:36:00.007+05:30

Dear Friends,

Greetings from FACSE!!

As you already know, Forum against Child Sexual Exploitation (FACSE) is a 13 year old network of individuals, professionals and organizations working to eliminate sexual exploitation and abuse of children.

The forum the following broad objectives:

To create awareness about the issue of child sexual abuse among different target groups as well as the general public.

To lobby for necessary changes in the law.

To handle cases through home visits, counselling, legal follow up and emotional rehabilitation of the children.

We also take great pleasure in informing you that Saathi has taken up the Convenorship of the Forum for the next three years. Saathi is registered development organization in Mumbai and is committed to working with issues faced by youth living on the streets and runaway or abandoned adolescent girls since 1997.

With a new energy we are reviving the activities that FACSE used to pursue. We would like to thank you in making the last meeting a success

This time, we have invited Dr. Naina Athale, Counsellor and faulty at Tata Institute of Social Sciences as the Guest Speaker to share her experiences of working with sexually abused children using play therapy.

Our intention is to use the medium of film for sensitizing each and every person in contact with children (through work or otherwise) to their responsibility of upholding and promoting the Rights of Children. We would thus like to invite you for the open meeting on 25th August 09 Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. at the following address.

FACSE
C/o CCVC,
Room No: 54, 2nd Floor
Gilder Lane Municipal School,
Off. Belasis Bridge.
Opp. Mumbai Central Station
Mumbai 08

Kindly RSVP at this number 9820996223 or 23002683 (Ms. Ketki Doshi)

Regards
FACSE team

Teacher 'disrobes' girls

2009-07-30T00:01:00.006+05:30

Press Trust Of India

Published on Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 19:26,
Updated on Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 20:19 in India section

Vidisha: In a shocking incident, a teacher allegedly removed upper clothes of eight Adivasi girl students of fifth standard of a government school near Tyonda in Vidisha on the pretext of taking measurements for their uniforms.

The shameful act of the teacher has now forced the eight girls of Ganjbasoda's Nurpur Education Guarantee Scheme School to discontinue their studies.

The incident that took place on July 24 about five km from Tyonda came to light when the girls complained to their parents about it, District Education Officer Manish Verma said on Wednesday.

He said the parents in a complaint alleged that the Guruji (teacher), Sanjeev Sharma, had allegedly removed the upper clothes of eight Adivasi girl students on the pretext of taking measurements for their uniforms in a closed classroom after calling two students at a time.

Once he made them to remove their upper clothes, he took the measurement with his fingers, instead of an inch-tape, Verma said. The students also alleged that the teacher had misbehaved with them when they were half-naked in the closed classroom, the DEO said.

The angry villagers went to the school but by then, Sharma had left after locking the premises following which they complained about the matter to the DEO.

Later, the DEO constituted a four-member committee, led by Tehsildar Kiran Badbade, which after conducting a probe found Sharma prima facie guilty on the matter.

Taking action on the probe report, the DEO dismissed Sharma from service yesterday with immediate effect.

[Source: http://ibnlive.in.com/news/teacher-disrobes-girls/98153-3.html ]

It doesn't cost much to protect a child from sexual abuse

2009-07-03T22:00:00.001+05:30

90 million children in India have been sexually abused. This means that they have been touched, kissed and fondled inappropriately, sometimes raped. This has been done to them usually by someone they trust and know and at an age when they cannot even begin to understand what might have been happening. Most of these children grow up believing it was somehow their fault that this happened to them. They either grow up to be very disturbed and traumatised adults or many a times abusers themselves.

90 million children - if it hasn’t happened to your child or to someone you know, it is just sheer providence.

Arpan was set up by me to help sexually abused children and adults and prevent it from happening as commonly as it does. Arpan has been working on the issue since year 2006 and has reached out to over 3500 adults and 800 children so far.

We wish to expand our programs and reach out to over 3000 adults and children this year for which we need 25 lacs. We need your support.

Your contribution will help.

Teach personal safety skills to children so that they can protect themselves from sexual abuse .
Train parents and teachers to prevent and intervene in the event of CSA .

Children and adult survivors heal through counseling and therapy, and restore their dignity and self respect to become healthy happy human beings.

To know more about what we do and see a video on Child Sexual Abuse click here - http://www.arpan.org.in/whatwedo.html

To see a video of our Personal Safety program being taught in schools - http://www.arpan.org.in/personalsafetyed.html

A variety of donation options are available for you to support. For eg. it costs only Rs. 400/- to teach a child how to protect him/herself from sexual abuse and for us to help the child if he needs any intervention. Please click here to view more such donation options and the different modes of payment. http://www.arpan.org.in/contribute.html

I really look forward to your support. I would also appreciate if you could send this appeal to people in your organization, friends and family.

Thank you so much! : )

For more information you could contact me (Pooja Taparia) on 9820135567 or pooja@arpan.org.in

Warm regards,
Pooja
*******
Pooja Taparia
Founder - CEO
Arpan
Our vision - A safe world free from Child Sexual Abuse and its ill effects.
email: pooja@arpan.org.in
website: www.arpan.org.in
blog: www.arpancsa.blogspot.com
facebook: arpan
You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfmo8kjezs8

Kids in Irish 'Fritzl' incest hell

2009-06-24T23:25:00.013+05:30

By JOANNE McELGUNN
Irish Sun Crime Editor
Published: 17 Jun 2009

A HORRIFYING case of suspected incest involving up to SEVEN youngsters and BOTH their parents is being investigated by Irish police. The children claim they were raped and brutally assaulted by their father and mother in their west of Ireland home.

In a case reminiscent of the infamous Josef Fritzl incest horror in Austria they detail how they endured years of vile abuse behind closed doors.

They told investigators how they were forced to have sex with their parents and each other. There are serious concerns that the mother gave birth to a child fathered by one of her sons. The terrified kids — aged between one and 13 when the alleged abuse came to light — detailed how they were raped by their father while their mother looked on.

They described a catalogue of unimaginable horror including watching their baby sister, then TWO, being raped by their father. A source said: “What they describe is beyond horror — way above anything that this country has ever previously heard.

Appalling

“This involves up to seven kids from an even larger family. It was a house of sheer, utter horror where every imaginable abuse is said to have taken place. “Parents forcing sex on the children who in turn were made have sex with each other — it’s all alleged. “There are also strong suspicions that the mother gave birth to her son’s child - who was one of the seven kids then abused.” The children told how their father abused them with a stick and forced them to have sex with both parents.The investigation also heard claims that they were made to perform sex acts on each other.

Following a two-year probe gardai sent a file to the DPP recommending the father be charged with the rape and aggravated sexual assault of the children. Officers also recommended the mother be charged with the aggravated sexual assault of four of the children and several counts of aiding and abetting sexual assaults. However, after assessing the file for over a year the DPP declined to prosecute. It has been alleged five of the children made statements detailing the abuse — including seeing their baby sister and brother being raped and assaulted. Now the DPP has ordered that the case be reviewed and resubmitted to his office.

The move, it is thought, follows the successful prosecution of a case in Roscommon. Last July this 40-year-old woman was convicted of incest against one son and the sexual abuse of another. She also pleaded guilty to neglect of six of her children. The DPP has ordered a review of other similar cases, including the one revealed by the Irish Sun today. Several officers have been appointed to examine this case before sending it back to the DPP. A source said: “They want to see if anything was missed.” The kids, who were taken into care a decade ago, first came to the attention of the Midland Health Board in the late 1990s when they lived in its catchment area. The family were placed under the supervision of the MHB after a number of complaints from neighbours about the physical condition of the children.

It was not until the family moved to the west of Ireland and came under the care of the Western Health Board that the claims of rapes and sex assaults came to light. The children were first interviewed about the sexual abuse around eight years ago and they detailed a horrific home-life of rapes, beatings, hunger and neglect. One told how he and his brother were made to have sex with their sister — who has since tried to kill herself several times and is feared to be “beyond hope”. Another detailed how he saw an older brother have sex with his mother and his father hav e sex with a sister. Yet another told how he would vomit after being forced to perform oral sex on his father.Another child said he saw his father having oral sex with four of his brothers and sisters. They also described how their father would beat them and their mother. All of the children were interviewed separately and have reportedly given startlingly similar accounts of abuse — detailing how they would hide under a table when their father was looking for his next victim.

Both parents were arrested in 2002 and denied any wrongdoing. The couple are still together, despite the fact the husband has been convicted of beating his wife. He is many years older than her and there is some suspicion he began having sex with her when she was 12 or 13.A source said: “The only comfort is that this mother is now beyond child-bearing age. “Some of the younger children remain in foster care where they are doing well. Others are older and no longer in care. They are trying to cope as best they can

[Author's email id : joanne.mcelgunn@the-sun.ie ]
[Thanks to Askios for the article ]

The Ryan Report: It's horrifying

2009-06-15T20:46:00.007+05:30

The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (CICA) is one of a range of measures introduced by the Irish Government to investigate the extent and effects of abuse on children from 1936 onwards. It is generally known in Ireland as the "Ryan report" or "the Ryan Commission" (previously "the Laffoy Commission"), after its presiding judge, Justice Seán Ryan. The Commission's work started in 1999 and it published its public report on 20 May 2009.

Though the Commission's remit encompassed all forms of child abuse outside the family, the majority of allegations it investigated related to the system of residential "Reformatory and Industrial Schools" operated by Catholic Church orders, funded and supervised by the Irish Department of Education.

The Commission's report said testimony had demonstrated beyond a doubt that the entire system treated children more like prison inmates and slaves than people with legal rights and human potential, that church officials encouraged ritual beatings and consistently shielded their orders' paedophiles from arrest amid a "culture of self-serving secrecy", and that government inspectors failed to stop the chronic beatings, rapes and humiliation.

Those abused were, amongst other things, stripped, beaten and raped by nuns, subjected to naked beatings in public, forced into oral sex and even subjected to beatings after failed rape attempts by brothers. One person described how they attempted to tell nuns they had been molested by an ambulance driver only to be "stripped naked and whipped by four nuns to 'get the devil out of you'". Another described how they were removed from their bed and "made to walk around naked with other boys whilst brothers used their canes and flicked at their penis". Yet another was "tied to a cross and raped whilst others masturbated at the side".

The abuse has been described by some as Ireland's Holocaust. The abuse was said to be "endemic" across Irish educational institutions. The UK based Guardian newspaper, described the abuse as "the stuff of nightmares", citing the adjectives used in the report as being particularly chilling: "systemic, pervasive, chronic, excessive, arbitrary, endemic".

[To read about the Ryan Report in details, click here.]

[Thanks to Sagnik for the link to the article.]

Arpan's awareness video on CSA

2009-04-11T17:37:00.005+05:30

Hi ,

Just a minute of your time. ARPAN has come out with an awareness video on Child Sexual Abuse. I think it's effective. The video is avaliable on YouTube in the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfmo8kjezs8

"A child can be abused by anyone, just about anyone...."

Spread the message.

Regards,
Amrita.

Mumbai businessman held for raping daughters

2009-03-19T13:41:00.003+05:30

(Please click on title to view the actual article from IBN Live)

Thursday March 19, Mumbai - In a horrific incident reminiscent of the infamous Josef Fritzl case, a father in Mumbai has been sexually abusing and exploiting his daughters for the last 10 years.

Mumbai Police arrested the 60-year-old businessman on charges of allegedly raping his two daughters. The mother of the two girls has also been arrested for abetment.

The elder daughter, now 21, was allegedly raped for 10 years. The businessman started raping his second daughter - a 15-year-old - just a few months ago. The elder daughter then confided in her maternal grandmother when she saw her younger sister being targeted just as she had been by her father.

Police say the couple was under the influence of atantrik, Hasmukh Rathod, who said raping the girls will bring the family prosperity.

Police say the father started raping his elder daughter when she was 11 years old after thetantrik advised the father to have sexual relations with her.

"The father has been raping her for nine years on the pretext that it would make him rich. The tantriktoo has been raping the younger daughter for five months now," claims police officer Mukund Mahajan.

The incident is reminiscent of the infamous Josef Fritzl incest case in Austria. Fritzl faces trial for imprisoning and raping his daughter for 24 years and fathering seven children.

He has pleaded guilty to all charges including rape, incest and enslavement of his daughter. The 73-year-old Fritzl has also admitted to being responsible for the death of one of the seven children after video testimony by his daughter.

Some cases of a father raping his daughter that have been in news in the past include the case of a 13-year-old Bhopal girl who was allegedly sexually assaulted by her father on February 4, 2009, when she complained to him about her cousin who had been raping her.

In April 2005 a 14-year-old girl in Hyderabad yd had been repeatedly raped by her father and even became pregnant.

In October 2006 Pratima, 25, a Dalit woman accused her father, Birendra Kumar, SDM of a Derapur in Banda district in Kanpur, for raping her for more than a year.

In another shocking incident the principal and two teachers of an institution for disabled girls in Himachal Pradesh have been arrested for sexually abusing at least six of them for a year.

The arrest came after raids on the institution, Prerna Welfare.

Most perpetrators of sexual assault are someone the family or child knows

2009-02-07T15:12:00.002+05:30

01/17/2009

Reported by Katie Weidenboerner, Tri-County Sunday.

Email: katiew@thecourierexpress.com

DuBOIS - Despite the stereotypes of a stranger in a trench coat hanging around the playground, in more than 90 percent of sexual abuse cases, the child and the child's family know and trust the abuser. "What we see and statistically what has been proven, is most of your perpetrators are someone the family or the child knows. They're somebody that knows your habits - who knows when you're not going to be home and when you're going to be home - so they can take advantage," Billie Jo Weyant, director of Citizens Against Physical, Sexual and Emotional Abuse, said. "That's why a lot of times kids are so afraid to tell. Even adults can be afraid to tell. You don't know what that person has threatened those children, young adults and adults."Since most children seek approval from adults, they are vulnerable to abuse."The use of physical force is rarely necessary to draw a child into sexual activity. Offenders know this and take advantage of children in this way," Diane Kuntz, executive director of Prevention and Service for Sexual Assault through Guidance, Empowerment and Support, said. "They often groom children for sexual assault. The grooming process includes building trust, bestowing favors, alienating others, demanding secrecy and violating boundaries. Usually, sexual abuse begins gradually and then increases over time. It is rarely a one-time incident and often continues for years."PASSAGES and CAPSEA have differing perspectives regarding the increase of services provided to child victims of sexual assault and their families.PASSAGES was founded in 1980 as The Rape Crisis Center, and is dedicated to the provision of free and confidential services to the survivors of sexual assault throughout Clarion, Clearfield and Jefferson counties.Kuntz said since 1995, the number of children seen at PASSAGES has nearly doubled, along with the number of service hours provided. "In the past year, PASSAGES has provided 560 hours of services to 93 children," Kuntz said. "According to the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape, there were 4,562 substantiated cases of child sexual assaults in Pennsylvania in the 2005-06 fiscal year. In addition, sexual violence centers throughout the Commonwealth served 37,353 individuals. Of those served, 10,147 were child victims."Even though these numbers may seem staggering, Kuntz said 88 percent of child sexual abuse is never reported to authorities and sexual assault is the violent crime least reported to law enforcement.CAPSEA is committed to providing confidential service to victims of physical, sexual and emotional abuse in Elk and Cameron counties as well as to victims of all other serious crimes in Elk County.Weyant said of the 1,708 new victims the organization provided assistance, accompaniment and transportation to between 2007 and 2008, the number involving child sexual assault fluctuates. "Sexual violence and child sexual assault - this is something that is not going to go away in the next 10 years. On a positive note, me being here almost 19 years, I have seen many strides in the legal system, victims services," Weyant said. "Prevention is key. Adults have to educate themselves and children need to be made aware from day one with age appropriate information." Weyant said when victims services, law enforcement, the judicial system and other agencies work together and share information, abuse is more likely to be noticed and more victims can be helped. She stressed that when agencies share information, they are not disclosing private information, but talking about the issues and how to help victims."There was a time when I first started when you said 'sexual assault' and people said 'that doesn't happen around here.' People wanted to just hide," Weyant said.Kuntz agreed the "taboo" surrounding sexual assault is being progressively combated by increased awareness and education."Since 1995, the number of prevention/education programs provided in our service area has dramatically increased. In fiscal year 1994-95, PASSAGES provided 138 programs to 3,927 participants. In the 2007-08 fiscal year, Passages provided 785 programs to 15,438 of our area's youth," Kuntz said. "Talking about it is preventing it while assisting victims in coming forward. The more that people understand how common the problem really is, the easier it is to talk about. Thus, allowing victims to heal and helping to prevent sexual violence by raising awareness." Weyant said in her 19 years of working in victims services, she has also seen an improvement in the way details surrounding child sexual abuse are reported by the media. As an example, she recalled a high profile case in the early 1990s."So much detail was given (in the local newspapers) - the little girl's name, street address, the mother's name was in it. It was horrible because those people no longer had a safe haven," Weyant said. "I think the press has improved greatly." She said because of the press coverage, that trial had to be moved to another county in the eastern portion of the state. As a result, the family had to find their own means for travel, food and lodging. In comparison, psychologist and Project Point of Light Director William Allenbaugh II said if too much detail about the crime is published, it has the potential to hurt the victim."From a victim's perspective, the concern I have with the graphic depictions are the problems it can create for victims. If victims are in grade school, middle school, high school, even though they aren't named, people quickly put two and two together," Allenbaugh said. "I think it creates another obstacle for them to overcome. Victims can survive, but it is a process, and it gets more complicated when other people are aware of what went on." Project Point of Light was developed in 1986 as a joint effort of Clearfield and Jefferson counties' adult probation offices and the State Board of Parole in Altoona and Butler. It is an outcome-based program which targets adults and adolescents who experience difficulty as a result of inappropriate sexual behavior. Services are also available to victims and non-offending parents.From a perpetrator's perspective, Allenbaugh said he doesn't know how the details of a crime would serve any purpose, especially since they are already provided by affidavit to those who are working with the offender."I would have concern with the vividness more so for the victim than the perp," Allenbaugh said.The average age at which children are sexually abused is between 7 and 13. Allenbaugh said the youngest children he has worked with in the past year were 5 year olds."Look for a major change in where they (a child) are at. We see kids a lot of times who are sexually abused who experiment with siblings, such as trying to perform oral sex on their sisters - beyond what should be known," Allenbaugh said. "It could also be that they are seeing porn at home, which in my opinion is another form of sexual abuse."Sexual abuse is defined as any sexual act between an adult and a minor or between two minors where one exerts power over the other. Sexual abuse of children can include forcing, coercing or persuading a child to engage in sexual activity or to participate in non-contact acts like exhibitionism, exposure to pornography, voyeurism or talking sexually by phone or Internet.Weyant said there are victim crisis centers in every county in Pennsylvania.Once a victim discloses, he or she can call CAPSEA and a trained volunteer or staff member is available 24 hours for immediate crisis intervention. One of the first concerns of the CAPSEA representative is to make sure the individual is safe and to assist in getting them medical attention or referrals to meet their other needs. CAPSEA volunteers and staff can also serve as accompaniment and support to the victim."We don't do anything that victim or survivor doesn't want us to do. We let that person take the lead," Weyant said. "Also, people who initially call us don't have to disclose their name. We can assist an anonymous call, and all of our services are free of charge." Once the first response is handled, CAPSEA can also provide ongoing crisis, options and empowerment counseling and make referrals to other organizations and services. PASSAGES also has a 24-hour hotline. The organization offers individual and group counseling, medical accompaniment, legal advocacy through the entire legal process, and other information, referral and educational programs.Weyant has been involved in sexual assault education for many years. "I tell people anytime someone discloses that they have been victimized, it is never the fault of the victim. Do not act shocked or act like you don't believe that person. If people don't know what to do or where to turn, please call us. That is what we're here for," Weyant said. "It is a horrendous thing to go through, but when that person is in need of help and can find there are people who aren't going to judge them and are going to be in their corner with them, I think that is such a boost to helping that healing process start."When sexual assault occurs, if it is not dealt with, it can be like a contagion that plagues other areas in that victim's life and of society as a whole.Weyant and Allenbaugh said many cases of sexual assault start when victims are children and go on into adulthood. Allenbaugh works with victims through victim witness, Children & Youth Services and self referral."I work with a lot of victims in their 50s who are now trying to deal with what happened to them as kids and never reported it because back in those days it was just something you didn't talk about," Allenbaugh said. "Women have come a long way, but we still have a long way to go."An information packet from PASSAGES said early sexual victimization can result in life-long problems. The degree of trauma depends on age and personality of the child, the nature of the relationship between the child and offender, the nature and duration of the abuse, and the way disclosure is handled, especially the degree of support a family offers. Allenbaugh added that with older adults who have been sexually abused, some of the signs may be substance abuse, becoming obese as a way to avoid becoming close with people, lack of trust, depersonalization and lack of self esteem. Prostitution, delinquency, suicide, depression and sexual fears and dysfunction are also often associated with early and long-term abuse.A pattern of victimization can continue into future generations. Women abused as children sometimes marry men who will abuse their children. Men abused as children may continue the cycle of victimization as abusers."There is no simple checklist I know of (to be able to realize someone is being sexually abused). You have to look at the individual because there are so many different variables that can occur," Allenbaugh said. "The younger you catch it, the better."
---

[Source:http://www.leader-vindicator.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20243523&BRD=2758&PAG=461&dept_id=572984&rfi=6 ]

[Thanks to Askios for the link to the article]

What Will Happen to the Children

2008-10-18T19:24:00.002+05:30

Column by Tara Overzat - Sep 22, 2008

Children who are physically or sexually abused suffer massive mental trauma. Their past, however, does not seal their fate — as former victims like Oprah Winfrey, C. J. Walker, and Joseph Moderow can attest.

Twice in one week. A family in Lavonia, Georgia, (on the South Carolina-Georgia border) and one in Jackson, Alabama. Horrific stories of abuse and imprisonment of two families — one with four children, the other with eight.

Raymond Daniel Thurmond kept his wife and four children locked up in a filthy double-wide trailer for three years. The mother and children were never allowed outside and were so well-hidden that the neighbors were not even aware that Thurmond had a family.

Anthony Hopkins had a wife and eight children. He told curious people in his community that his suddenly absent wife had died in childbirth. Recently, the police found what they think is her body in the man’s freezer. His eldest daughter whom he raped for years, is the one who finally went to the police.

The media will pay attention to these stories for about a week, then TruTV and Nancy Grace will pick these stories up again when they go to trial. Then, they will vanish altogether. After we are satisfied that the bad guy has gone to jail (hopefully for good), we will flip on the game, or watch TMZ. We will lose interest.

But whatever becomes of those tortured children? It is hard to believe that a human being — especially a child who is just learning about the world and developing as a person — witnessing and experiencing such events will grow up to be a normal and well-adjusted adult. Are all twelve of these children doomed to become abusers, drug addicts, rapists or murderers?

Not necessarily so. We hear about serial killers and other social degenerates who had horrific childhoods. And then there are the Menendez brothers, who grew up privileged and in a happy family. (The jury at their final trial did not believe the defense’s excuse that Erik and Lyle had been abused by their father.) Or Jeffrey Dahmer, whose childhood was middle-class and ordinary.

If it were true that bad parenting alone spelled disaster for a person’s life, then we would be hearing about the depraved acts of jailbirds’ siblings, who shared similar upbringings.

Some killers have bad parents. Some had great parents. Not all well-reared children will do the right things in life, nor will all badly parented children end up harming others.

Take for example, Oprah Winfrey. Her traumatic childhood consisted of being raped by her cousin at nine, and later by her uncle and another family member. She was pregnant by the time she was fourteen.

Despite these events, which would haunt even the strongest of people, she has become the richest female entertainer in the world, with a media empire that would have been unthinkable by her abusers.

Even before the world had heard of Oprah Winfrey, Madame C.J. Walker (born Sarah Breedlove) had worked herself up from a poor and traumatic childhood into a black, female millionaire by the turn of the twentieth century, at a time when blacks had few rights and as a woman she could not even vote.

Born into a former slave family and first married at fourteen, Walker eventually manufactured and sold hair products for black women — which no one was successfully doing at the time. At an NAACP convention, she famously said, “I am a woman who came from the cotton fields of the South. I was promoted from there to the washtub. Then I was promoted to the cook kitchen, and from there I promoted myself.”

Joseph R. Moderow, Senior Vice President, General Council, and Board Member (retired) of the United Parcel Service (UPS) is another fine example of overcoming childhood abuse and financial instability. Moderow developed polio as a baby and, though he recovered, his childhood was fraught with pain, culminating in his father remarking that Moderow was a “disappointing failure who would never amount to anything in life.”

Moderow’s father never spoke to him again. With this lack of even basic emotional support from his family, Moderow’s life could have taken a turn for the worse. But he chose otherwise, becoming the first person in his family to graduate from college and attaining a noteworthy career.

Liberals will have you believe that these are just “Horatio Alger stories,” mythical events out of ordinary reach. This is not so. Not only is every human being sentient and capable of making choices that will better their lives, but there are people, famous and not, who have done so.
The liberal answer of placing government in charge of bettering your life does not work. A handout is never a hand up.

Oprah was not helped by the government. Laws existed at the time that were blatantly against the rights of black women like Madame Walker. Nor was Joseph Moderow helped when he worked a series of low paying, blue-collar part-time jobs in order to become the first person in his family to graduate from college.

The Thurmond and Hopkins children should take comfort in one thing. Your past does not determine your future. Does it influence it? Perhaps. But your past does not have the final say.

“Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around.” —Vanilla Sky

Tara Overzat is a University of Florida graduate who formerly taught in Beijing, China. She currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia where she is a paralegal and freelance writer

[Source : http://www.theatlasphere.com/columns/080922-overzat-child-abuse.php ]

[Thanks to Nikhil for the link to the article ]

Where trust has gone

2008-07-11T23:21:00.001+05:30

I found this article in the Mumbai Edition of the HT Cafe recently. Click on the image to get a better view.

When the next generation is at stake (Part- II)

2008-07-11T22:54:00.003+05:30

Just because it’s a secret, the horrific reality of sexual abuse in India does not stop being true. SONAM JAIN in Hyderabad

When 13-year-old Natasha tried telling her parents that she was being *inappropriately touched and fondled’ by her uncle, they did not believe her. Gradually, she started getting aggressive and developed an aversion towards people in general and boys in particular. She became so difficult that she had to drop school for some time.
In yet another incident six-year-old Preity was sexually abused by her tuition teacher. Being too young to realise what was happening, she did not inform anyone. After repeated assaults, she lost interest in tuitions and then studies. Finally, she dropped school altogether. A brilliant girl’s academic career comes to an end.
These are not one-off cases. It’s just one of the cases we know of. Most incidents are locked up like skeletons in the cupboards. Just because it’s secret, the horrific reality of sexual abuse does not stop being true. Did you know that, in India, a child below 16 years is raped every 155th minute, a child below 10 every 13th hour, and one in every 10 children is sexually abused? Did you know that India has the dubious distinction of having the world’s largest number of sexually abused children? The situation is made worse by the absence of effective legislation and the silence that surrounds the problem.
Sexual abuse can take several forms — from verbal, visual, tactile, exhibitionist and pornographic offences and fondling to anything that stimulates a person sexually. The victims could be a boy or girl in any age group. Majority of sexual offenders are family members or are known to the child. “Stranger danger”, by comparison, is very rare.
Often, sexually abused children feel ashamed and may go into a shell. And if someone does muster the courage, they have ‘post abuse’ in store when no one wants to believe them. The blame may even come bouncing right back at them for ‘wearing such provocative clothes’.
Parents and mentors can definitely play a major role in preventing and dealing with abused children. Dr. P. Jyothiraja (psychologist and education consultant) says, “Talk to children about sexual abuse, listen to them, believe them, and recognise symptoms such as physical complaints and behavioural changes. Silence does not mean that all is well.”
Remember that a victim of abuse needs a lot of moral and emotional support. There should never be any justification of abuse by saying that he/she must have done something to provoke it. Isidor Philips, director, Divya Disha, feels that a whole lot of confusing messages are sent to people as children. “Children are often told to give relatives hugs and kisses. This is not always good. Let them express affection on their own terms. The *silence about sex’ culture forbids parents from talking to their children about sexuality. Hence, children and youth are confused about their own sexuality and have no idea about right or wrong touch. When they get a confusing signal, they have no source of support.” Sex education in schools is also productive.
In the meantime, with sexual abuse attracting public debate, the government needs to adopt strong measures. A larger response system needs to be created. For a country with nearly 50 per cent of its populace comprising children and youth, such measures are overdue.

Please click on the post title to see the actual article.

When the next generation is at stake

2008-07-11T22:39:00.005+05:30

Just because it’s a secret, the horrific reality of sexual abuse in India does not stop being true. CASSANDRA SUNDARAJA and RACHEL ANUSHA J. in Chennai

Eighteen-year-old Smithi* was being sexually abused by her cousin Shyam*. When she summoned up the courage to confide in her mother, little did she expect this reply, “As long as you don’t get pregnant, don’t make it a big issue.”
In the light of such incidents, it is not surprising that sexual abuse of children and the youth is the biggest kept secret in India. A recent study by an organisation called Stop It Now (www.stopitnow.org) revealed that only 12 per cent of the victims (both boys and girls) disclose being abused. Another study by Tulir - Centre for the Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse (www.tulir.org) notes that over 50 per cent of them were not helped, but instead disbelieved, blamed or told to keep it a secret.
So what is sexual abuse? The involvement of a child/teen in sexual behaviour by an older or more ‘powerful’ person, manipulating, persuading or forcing an individual to engage in any type of sexual act is called sexual abuse, in which both girls and boys are equally vulnerable. It also includes non-contact acts such as exposing one’s private body parts.
First, let us look at the legal aspects. In our country, sexual intercourse with a girl below the age of 16, with or without her consent, is considered rape. But, if a married girl above 15 years is forced to have intercourse with her husband, it is NOT considered rape. Contradicting all this are child marriage laws that prohibit marriage below the age of 18! Now does this make any sense?
Next is who is a child? In some cultures, anyone below 18 years is a child. Others believe that childhood ends at the age of 12. Let us assume that a child is below 12 years and a teenager or young adult falls between 13 and 18 years.
According to a National Study of Child Abuse by the Ministry for Women and Child Development, Government of India, 53.22 per cent of the population has faced sexual violence in some form or the other. Vidya Reddy, the founder of Tulir, stressed the importance of the ‘power dynamic’ involved in abuse. The abuser need NOT be an older person, but a more ‘powerful’ and authoritative one.
We need to clarify here that sexual harassment is NOT synonymous with sexual abuse. Sexual abuse, says Ms. Reddy, occurs in the context of a relationship in which trust, responsibility and authority play a major role. Around 95 per cent of the abusers are well known to the victim; in most cases it is a family member or a close family friend. The abuser can also be a servant, a driver, a baby sitter, a neighbour, an older child looking after a younger child. Authoritative abusers are usually teachers, coaches. In some cases all three factors are present.
Thirteen-year-old Jaya* was finding it difficult to cope with her swimming classes. Her coach offered to teach her “special exercises” and told her not to tell anyone because then he would not be able to give her undivided attention. Jaya, thrilled that her coach was showing special interest, readily agreed. The coach, taking advantage of the churning waters, sexually abused her (finger penetration) in the pool.
This incident also introduces the concept of grooming, a systematic and methodical process by which an abuser gains his or her victims’ trust, thereby reducing the probability of the abuse being reported. In some cases, the abuser gains the trust of the victim’s parents as well, making it even more difficult for the victim to complain.
Society’s ignorance and response to sexual violence against children and teenagers, which is considered “taboo”, discourages the victims from disclosing their abusive history. Emotional involvement is another reason why the victim might not complain or break the relationship. For example, a child who has witnessed domestic violence might grow up with the wrong notion that it is the norm to continue with the relationship despite the violence. Added to this, the media sometimes reinforces or exaggerates these real life incidents.
Sexual abuse may occur during childhood, but the effects can continue into adulthood. Peter* is 36 years, but finds it difficult to make important decisions and becomes an emotional wreck in a situation of crisis. The reason? His geography teacher inappropriately fondled him (masturbated him through his shorts) during class from his sixth standard till his 10th standard. The teacher used to ensure that Peter was always sitting alone in the last bench, thereby placing him in a helpless situation. The trauma of this incident continues to affect his everyday life.
Meera* detests the smell of mangoes, because she associates it with the memories of being raped by her grandfather, who used to smell of mangoes.
Most parents react at first with disbelief and denial. (“How could you say such a thing about Ramu Uncle?”). Some blame themselves (“Where did we go wrong?” or “How could this happen to our child?”). Still others turn a blind eye to such incidents. Most prefer to hush up the issue with an eye to the “future of the child” (and their social status). However, parents should start thinking of the here and now. The shame and guilt of hiding such incidents will eventually haunt the victim.
RAHI (Recovery and Healing from Incest; www.rahifoundation.org), an organisation in Delhi, arranges Peer Education programmes to equip college-going women with knowledge, understanding, skills, attitudes and beliefs in the area of incest and sexual violence. This is done with the view that teens are more likely to confide in their friends rather than in their parents or teachers. Major aspects include assuring the victims that they are believed; if the abuse continues, discreet steps will be taken to stop it; it is not their fault.
According to Ms. Reddy, a majority of the victims go through life believing they were the reason for the abuse. Also children who have been abused are more vulnerable to future abuse. Most victims think they are the only ones being abused and finding that others have faced similar trauma lightens their burden (visit http://askios.tripod.com). Those unwilling to share their experiences can try self-help workbooks (contact Tulir at 26192026, 26190771).
What can we do? It is essential to voice your views as this is an important step towards stopping abuse and also contributes towards the healing process. An effective support and response structure in terms of family, friends, professional services, law and the society as a whole is essential so that the victims have a chance to address their problems. Most abusers do not stop only with one victim.
If you know or hear of a child/teen being sexually abused, do whatever it takes to ensure the child’s/teen’s safety and inform the parents about the child’s vulnerability. Just think, “What if it was ME or MY child?” Remember, every individual counts!
* Names changed to protect the privacy of the individual
Why they don’t complain
Fear of not being believed
Fear of being blamed
Fear of further harm
Fear of shame and guilt
Fear of losing love
Fear of remembering the incident
Boys as victims
This issue is not taken seriously. In one survey, out of 847 boys, 405 reported sexual abuse. Of that, 179 reported severe sexual abuse (sexual intercourse, oral sex, photographing them in the nude, asking them to touch the abuser’s private parts). Most boys will not report abuse due to the shame involved.
Role of adults
Parents should teach their children the age-appropriate names of all body parts (no more referring to any body part as shame, shame!). Only then will the child be able to report unsafe touches.
Children should be taught the difference between a safe and an unsafe touch.They should be taught that their body belongs to them and they have a right to say NO.
Create a non-judgmental atmosphere at home so that children will feel free to report untoward incidents.
Chapters on reproduction in biology books should be amply descriptive and teachers should explain the concept of sexual intercourse (no skipping pages 92-97!). This will prevent curious teens from getting information from inappropriate sources.
Start peer education programmes schools and colleges. Remember, more than half of the victims just need someone to talk to.
RAHI’s PEP
RAHI’s Peer Education Program (PEP) is a unique student peer intervention strategy that works with young women on Delhi’s college campuses for the prevention and healing of child sexual abuse. Students are selected from different colleges in Delhi and are trained as Peer Educators (PEs) over four days. Students learn the art of listening to a friend talking about his or her sexual abuse experiences, how to manage group discussions, make presentations and function as a team. The training is rounded off with some practical goal setting and a concrete plan of action. PEs design and lead educational activities for their peers. They organise debates, poster competitions, theatre events, workshops, book readings, and stalls during college fests. PEP was launched in October 2004. and has trained 86 students from 12 colleges who have reached over 12,000 students.

Cassandra and Rachel are IInd year students of B.Sc Psychology, Women’s Christian College, Chennai

Spreading Awareness

2008-07-11T22:32:00.004+05:30

There seems to be growing awareness of CSA lately. I came across an entire (Well,almost!) supplement devoted to Child Sexual Abuse in the Chennai Edition of The Hindu. Clicking on the post title will take you to the e-paper.

“Sexual abuse can occur to anyone irrespective of age, caste, socio-economic status…,” cautions Nandi Shah of Ashraya, an organisation that works to spread awareness about sexual abuse among children.
It organises workshops in schools and colleges where “the students first react with giggles which, I presume, is because they are embarrassed about the topic. But once they settle in, they can be really open and discuss the issue,” she recounts. At the end of the workshop, the students are encouraged to interact and ask questions and different modules are made use of for different age groups.
Ashraya has also organised a photo exhibition based on the subject of sexual abuse and will showcase them at different educational institutions. A film addressing the issue also features in Ashraya’s to-do list.
Speaking on sexual abuse, Nandi observes, “The abuser can be a person known and trusted by the victim. Usually when the abuser is a person within the family, the abuse is hidden due to social taboos or just never surfaces. One can look out for the victim’s physical warning signs like being withdrawn, depressed and not trusting adults. In an incident of child sexual abuse, addressing the child and the immediate family is what I feel is of utmost importance.”
How is effective is the legislation? “I personally feel that laws in the state are not favourable to the issue of child sexual abuse,” says Nandi.For more details, call Ashraya at 9382832875.MADHUMITHA SRINIVASAN

Petition for law against Child Sexual Abuse

2008-07-10T20:29:00.002+05:30

Hey People,

Read the petition and sign if you agree. This would take just a couple of minutes.

http://www.petitiononline.com/4541107/

Fight on!

Amrita.

Healing abused innocence

2008-07-10T18:57:00.003+05:30

REACHING OUT Elaan, an NGO, is extending its hand to those whose childhood was marred by abuse just like its founder’s was. PAROMITA PAIN

CSA or child sex abuse is society’s darkest open secret. We know it happens and yet we shy away from it. Have you ever wondered what you would have done if it happened to you? Let’s hope its something like what Pranaadhika (22) in Kolkata did. She wowed that what she had to deal with should never be another young person’s lot and established Elaan, an NGO, to help victims of CSA. “I identify myself as a survivor of multiple child abuse, some of which is not necessarily sexual. Sometimes it takes a non-sexualised phase of abuse and neglect to erode your defence mechanisms and self-esteem. You perceive the actual sexual violation as punishment for being what you are: a worthless human being who didn’t finish her vegetables,” says Pranaadhika.

Born out of a nightmare
Elaan isn’t just testimony to this young woman’s courage. Itis a story of how the effects of abuse can be dealt with. overcome and instigate one to gain enough nerves to fight against sexual predators. “I knew it was strange the minute the abuse began. At age eight (when it first occurred), I felt strange hands on my body and instinct screamed danger. I knew that my trust, soul and, lastly, my body were being violated. It was difficult to deal with the reactions of people who I thought would support me. Many laughed and the so-called professionals were horrible. At some point my abuser appeared nicer than them, which was frightening,” she says.

Reflecting a journey of understanding and healing, Elaan is also the result of insight gained during her personal journey through the country’s legal system. “There are no laws which make CSA (Child Sexual Abuse) a crime punishable under the IPC. Research and conversations with close friends showed that they had been through some sort of abuse or knew of someone who had been abused. I was not responsible for what had happened. While most of the world has laws and support structures for survivors, India condones sexual abuse and incest,” she says.

Elaan was registered after three years of testing projects, re-assessing the need for CSA awareness and trying to heal personal scars. She isn’t alone in her quest and Elaan consists of two boards — voting and non-voting. Pujarini, Vijay, Rohit, Mirna, Ajoy Sinha, Bimbabati and many others form the team of crusaders. Kirtika Sinha, her mother, is the much-required ‘experienced elder’. Watching her counsel young people today, it’s hard to believe the things she has been through — “I cut myself routinely to appear as unattractive as possible. I developed bipolar disorder and tackled extreme phases of feeling unusually happy, and then plummeting into an emotional void. Relationships built painstakingly would crash, as people didn’t want to handle me.”

What is the toughest question a CSA victim has ever asked her? “One young boy asked me ‘Have you healed completely?’ That had me thinking for while as I tend to get absorbed in my work rather than in my own issues. After some introspection, I knew I was healing fine, but I can’t say I am 100 per cent healed. But I am not angry any more and I want to live as a happy person who makes other people happy. My response must have satisfied him because he became more positive in his own outlook,” she reflects. “I want fellow survivors to understand that it is both acceptable as well as cathartic to ‘vent’ emotion to the fullest instead trying to ‘make it nice’ for the public around.”

Today Elaan’s mission is to create awareness because aware knowledge will help society adopt an educated approach towards CSA. “We are trying to create an online database of our supporters, prospective volunteers and active participants. The information entered will not be shared with anyone. It helps us know that you’re with us,” says Pranadhikha. It may seem like a very small step but, trust Elaan, it’s an important one nevertheless. And after all said and done, “It was hard but I survived. I’m still here,” she grins.

The members blog extensively you can catch them at http://elaan.wordpress.com/
Fill up the sheet at http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=p_gLv557YI0N3qH6gtL8YKw.
E-mail them at: elaanspeak@yahoo.co.in or admin@elaan.org
Elaan helplines: +91 98741 35977 or 033 6454 4564

[Source: http://www.go-nxg.com/?p=1297 ]

Home alone and a soft target

2008-06-29T18:03:00.003+05:30

17 May 2008, 0218 hrs IST,TNN

NEW DELHI: Soaring ambition has within its grip a young victim — the lonely child. Double income nuclear families, for all their progressive, self-assertive ways, are grappling with the predicament of leaving children at home, with sometimes, only a maid for supervision and company. With a steady erosion of the Great Indian Joint Family, children are now, more than ever, vulnerable to both physical and mental abuse.

An enraged Vikalp Verma, deputy manager with a city hospital, recounts how a maid from a placement agency had subjected his nine-month-old baby girl to physical torture. Both he and his wife Jolly (who works for an NGO) found it odd that their once cheerful child was clinging on to her mother at night and sleeping fitfully, wailing as they left for work and crawling towards them as fast as she possibly could, when they returned. They decided to install a web cam and soon discovered, that the maid, who was extremely polite in their presence, was hitting the child. "The 45-minute tape shook me up; she spanked my baby for crying out for a diaper change," says Vikalp, advising young parents to never depend on a maid totally.

Cruel domestic help is only part of the trouble. A child growing up outside the safety net of large families with grandparents and cousins, is subjected to unhealthy influences all the time. Like Lavanya Anirudh Verma, client services director at an ad agency discovered, when she and her husband were called to her seven-year-old daughter's school, because the child had used foul language in class. "I couldn't believe it," says Lavanya, "We never use foul language at home, so where was she picking it up from?" She later discovered that a group of older kids were using obscenities in the playground and decided to have a chat with her daughter instead of scolding her. "I told her that that it is a bad word, and some people do use it, but we don't." Both Lavanya and her husband believe that since kids nowadays are bombarded with spicy images on TV, and via the Internet, it's best to talk to them about the birds and bees, "good touch and bad touch" early. How early depends on when they start questioning, like their daughter did, when she saw an on-screen kiss. "I explained to her that only mummy and daddy can kiss you, everyone else has germs!" says Lavanya, voicing concern over how kids are also vulnerable to slobbery uncles within the family. A child, even at 3, should be able to say I don't like it when an uncle or older cousin touches him/her in a strange way.

Most working parents are hounded by the fear of child sexual abuse. Aruna Broota, a clinical psychologist and professor at Delhi University, recounts how one of her clients, a busy schoolteacher, left her six-year-old boy with the domestic staff — servant, driver, chowkidaar. "After the child's constant pleading, ‘Mummy, don't leave me', failed, he decided to take drastic measures and lock himself up in the bathroom. This compelled the family to investigate and they discovered, to their horror, that the child had been abused, time and again, by the male domestic staff."

"We need to be vigilant," warns professor Broota, citing web cams and closed-circuit TVs as a good way of monitoring what goes on in the house. However, she laments the passing of a time not too long ago, when there was enough people at home to ensure the safety of a child. "Neighbours too, were once friendly and reliable, but today, we don't even know who lives next door. And even if we do, we dont want them to interfere in our lives." She wonders where a child's park friends have disappeared, and believes that if children grow up with only Bahadur for company, they will become like Bahadur, with his mannerisms and crude language.

Working parents of teenage children have their own demons. Like Amal Sethi and wife Kishori, who head an ad agency, are constantly worried about their 16-year-old daughter. "As a parent, how does one keep control, without seeming like one is keeping control," he asks, emphasizing the teenage revulsion to interference of any sort. "How do I know that when she's off to the mall with a group of girls, she is actually with a group of girls!" he says. And while he believes he shares a strong bond with his daughter, he worries about her succumbing to peer pressure. "She talks about other girls in class who have boyfriends, and while I'm certain that she doesn't have one, how much can I continue to influence her decisions?" Grappling with the need to be open-minded while at the same time keeping a check on her, he regrets not spending enough time with his daughter.

Dr Amit Sen, psychiatrist, believes that working parents needn't be riddled with guilt, but should definitely be aware of the dangers of leaving a child alone at home. And while rape and murder are the most extreme forms of abuse kids are vulnerable to, neglect, criticism, and sexual overtures by "friendly" uncles are an equally real threat. He cautions working parents against sudden changes in a child's behavoiur, unexplained aggression or sudden sibling rivalry. For, a childish tantrum could very well be a cry for help.

radhika.oberoi@timesgroup.com

[ Source: Click here ]

Rapist pleads shorter jail term for using condom

2008-06-22T00:37:00.008+05:30

Published on Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 13:26 in World section

Kuala Lumpur: A Malaysian of Indian origin, who was sentenced to 36 years in jail four years ago for repeatedly raping his minor daughter, wants his jail term reduced because he used a condom while committing the crime.

The rapist's lawyer SI Rajah told a court of appeals here that the sentence imposed by the lower court was excessive and the father was remorseful. "Justice should be tempered with mercy," the lawyer said.

Rajah told the court the sentence should be reduced since "the accused used a condom every time he committed the offence", the New Straits Times reported Saturday.

The three-member bench of the appellate court refused to overturn the lower court's judgement since it held that a strong message should be sent that such an act must not be condoned.

"You mean it is okay to rape using a condom?" a judge asked in anger.

Four years ago, the sessions court in Petaling Jaya sentenced the accused to a total of 36 years in jail on four counts of rape. The rapist, now 49, appealed against the sentence because he was a first-time offender.

The man raped his 11-year-old daughter between May 2003 and August 2004 when the child's mother used to be away at work.

Deputy public prosecutor Aslina Joned told the court that the accused, a father of five, had betrayed the trust of his daughter.

Aslina said the father would give the victim five ringgit ($1.5) as a reward every time he raped her. A class teacher noticed the girl was in a state of depression and questioned her.

The man was arrested Aug 12, 2004, after his daughter told her teacher about his crime. He pleaded guilty to the charges in the sessions court a week later.

On the first three counts, then Sessions Court judge Nurmala Salim sentenced him to 18 years in jail. The sentences were to run concurrently. He was sentenced to a further 18 years of imprisonment for the fourth count.

[Source: Click here]

30 Days in September - Play on CSA by Lillete Dubey, in Mumbai

2008-06-20T15:25:00.008+05:30

Hi all,

Am pleased to share that Inner Courtyard is hosting a play by Lillete Dubey, '30 Days in September' to support Arpan's initiative of Spreading Awareness on Child Sexual Abuse. I would be very happy if you come to watch this play, an intense and gripping tale of love and betrayal that explores the brutal severance of the unbreakable bond between adult and child. A mother discovers the truth about her daughter, which sets them both on a journey of self discovery about their lives and their inextricably linked past.

Date: Friday, 20th June, 2008

Time: 7 pm - 8:30 pm

Venue: Y. B. Chavan Pratishthan Hall, opp. Sachivalaya, General Bhosle Marg, Mumbai 21

Adults only.

Please contact me or Anita on 9819051444 for free passes.

To read a review on the play please click below.

http://travel.sulekha.com/blog/2003/09/lillete-dubey-s-30-days-in-september-a-stunning.htm?contributor=nishgiri

Brilliant performance and a heart moving tale. I hope to see you there!

best regards,

Pooja Taparia

Arpan

Woman charged with repeated sexual abuse of relative

2008-06-19T01:40:00.006+05:30

Friday, June 13, 2008
BY Robert Wang
REPOSITORY STAFF WRITER

A Lake Township woman is accused of forcing an underage female relative in her care to repeatedly engage in sexual activity with her and her boyfriend.

Virginia Johnson, 38, of 12305 King Church Ave. NW, was arrested at her home around noon Wednesday, said Sgt. Dave Brown of the Summit County sheriff's investigations division.

Johnson faces felony charges of rape, permitting child abuse, sexual battery, disseminating material involving a minor and unlawful restraint, a sheriff's statement said. She's being held at the Summit County Jail in lieu of $100,000 bond. Johnson is set to appear in Barberton Municipal Court on Wednesday.

Johnson's boyfriend, Stephan C. Brothers, 40, of Raber Terrace in Green, killed himself April 28, Brown said.

The suicide occurred six days after deputies raided Brothers' and Johnson's homes, seizing nine computers, hard drives, USB thumb drives, DVDs and three cameras. The sergeant said that investigators came across child pornographic images in the case, but he declined to elaborate.

Brown said the sexual crimes started in 2005 and occurred until this year at Brothers' and Johnson's homes. The investigation was launched April 18, when the girl visited a sheriff's station in Green to report what had happened. She gave deputies a USB thumb drive with images of her that showed her partially nude.

With the evidence, deputies got search warrants from the Summit County and Stark County Common Pleas courts and raided Brothers' and Johnson's homes April 22.

On April 28, a family member told deputies that Brothers had stopped answering his calls, Brown said. A deputy found Brothers dead in his garage, after he had pumped deadly carbon monoxide into his vehicle. According to his obituary, he was a 1986 McKinley High School graduate, a Navy veteran and a plumber. His death notice said he enjoyed roller skating with his son.

It took about six weeks for the Summit County Computer Crimes Unit to find enough evidence on the computers to obtain an arrest warrant for Johnson. Brown said someone had tried to delete data, but the unit was able to recover much of it.

When deputies swooped in to arrest Johnson in Lake Township, she put up no resistance, Brown said. Her mother was with her.

Johnson's attorney, Joe Gorman, could not be reached for comment.

Brown said investigators now are trying to determine if there are other victims.

The deputy said Johnson actively dated people through the Web site singles.net, and that investigators have spoken with people she met online. He said they have not found sufficient evidence that Johnson and Brothers were part of any interstate distribution of child pornography.

Brown declined to say whether pictures of the victim were posted online.

"She's looking at a long time," Brown said about Johnson. "This is one of the worst cases."

Reach Repository writer Robert Wang at (330) 580-8327 or e-mail:
robert.wang@cantonrep.com

[Source: Click here ]

Untouchable?

2008-04-17T12:40:00.008+05:30

Millions of people worship Sai Baba as God incarnate. More and more say the Indian guru is also a pedophile.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Michelle Goldberg

July 25, 2001 | PUTTAPARTHI, India -- One of the most powerful holy men in India presides over the world's biggest ashram, Prasanthi Nilayam, or Abode of Peace, in a remote town located in a barren corner of Andhra Pradesh, a desperately poor state in a desperately poor country.

"Sai Baba was my God -- who dares to refuse God? He was free to do whatever he wanted to do with me; he had my trust, my faith, my love and my friendship; he had me in totality," says Iranian-American former follower Said Khorramshahgol. What Sai Baba chose to do with him, Khorramshahgol says, was to repeatedly call him into private interviews and order him to drop his pants and massage his penis. Other former devotees contend Sai Baba did even more. No matter -- in this part of the world, faith is absolute. Believers don't refuse God, and they don't question him.

The stories about Sai Baba's sexual misconduct are all remarkably similar. "During my 'private audiences' with Sai Baba, Sai Baba used to touch my private parts and regularly massage my private parts, indicating that this was for spiritual purposes," wrote Dutchman Hans de Kraker in a letter sent to French journalist Virginie Saurel. In December 1996, when de Kraker was 24, Sai Baba allegedly asked him to perform oral sex: "He grabbed my head and pushed it into his groin area. He made moaning sounds," de Kraker wrote. "As soon as he took the pressure off my head and I lifted my head, Sai Baba lifted his dress and presented me a semi-erect member, telling me that this was my good luck chance, and jousted his hips towards my face." When de Kraker reported to others what had happened, he was thrown out of the ashram.

American Jed Geyerhahn, who was 16 when Sai Baba started coming on to him, echoes de Kraker's account: "Each time I saw Baba, his hand would gradually make more prominent connections to my groin." The stories are endless, and endlessly alike, concerning mostly boys and men from their midteens to their mid-20s.

Most of "The Findings" consists of testimony of sexual harassment and sexual abuse. "Whilst still at the ashram, the worst thing for me -- as a mother of sons -- occurred when a young man, a college student, came to our room, to plead with David, 'Please Sir, do something to stop him sexually abusing us,'" Faye writes. "These sons of devotees, unable to bear their untenable position of being unwilling participants in a paedophile situation any longer, yet unable to share this with their parents because they would be disbelieved, placed their trust in David; a trust which had built over his five years as a visiting professor of music to the Sai college." These pleas eroded the Baileys' faith and finally made them go public.

Since then, the movement against Sai Baba has been snowballing. In the past few months, ex-devotees have contacted the FBI, Interpol, the Indian Supreme Court and a host of other agencies, hoping for help in their battle against the guru. A California man named Glen Meloy, who spent 26 years as a Sai devotee, is trying to organize a class-action lawsuit against Sai Organization leaders in America, modeled on the one recently launched against the Hare Krishnas.

His faith was shattered when he was shown excerpts from the diary of his close friend's 15-year-old son, detailing several incidents of molestation. The child of devotees, the boy had been raised to worship Sai Baba as God, and obliged when the master reportedly ordered his disciple to suck his penis. "You've got all these kids who are scared to death to do anything that will do disrespect to their parents, in a room with someone they believe to be the creator of the whole universe," said Meloy, his voice choked with fury. "This isn't just any child abuse; this is God himself claiming to do this."

Hari Sampath, an Indian software professional now living in Chicago and a former volunteer in the ashram's security service, is petitioning India's Supreme Court to order the central government to investigate Sai Baba. His greatest concern is for Sai Baba's Indian victims, who generally have a much more difficult time speaking out than Westerners do. During his time at Prasanthi Nilayam, he said, many students at the ashram's college told him they were pressured to have sex with the guru. "I've spoken to 20 or 30 boys who have been abused, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are 14-year-old kids made to live in his room and made to think it's a blessing. In most cases, their parents have been followers for 20 years and are not going to believe them," Sampath said by phone from Chicago. "Westerners have little to lose by coming forward. The Indians have to go on living among Sai Baba devotees."

Sai Baba, who hardly ever grants media interviews, alluded to the allegations himself at an address last year, saying, "Some devotees seem to be disturbed over these false statements. They are not true devotees at all. Having known the mighty power of Sai, why should you be afraid of the 'cawing of crows'? All that is written on walls [or] said in political meetings, or the vulgar tales carried by the print media, should not carry one away."

But the guru's alleged interest in his followers' phalli is pretty much an open secret among old hands at the ashram. The eerie thing about this story isn't just the evidence of widespread sexual abuse in one of the world's biggest cults -- after all, between the Roman Catholic Church and the Hare Krishnas, one is seldom surprised to find perversity in the shadow of piety these days. What's also strange is that many of Sai's followers seem to accept that their chastity-preaching guru takes young men, including minors, into a private chamber, asks them to drop their pants, masturbates them and occasionally demands blow jobs. They believe the stories, and they believe that he's God.

Please follow this link for the complete article.

After ‘Bitter Chocolate’, Pinki Virani thinks of fiction

2008-03-31T16:35:00.002+05:30

March 17th, 2008 - 10:49 am

By Rajeev Ranjan Roy

New Delhi, March 17 (IANS)- After the success of “Bitter Chocolate”, a book on child abuse in India, journalist-turned-author Pinki Virani is now willing to try her hand at fiction but says she will continue to highlight the same concerns. “The abuse of children will continue to be the central theme of my literary pursuits. It is the priority concern of my life, and I will carry on creating awareness to check incidents of child abuse so rampant in the country,” Virani told IANS.

She was among 15 women on whom Congress president Sonia Gandhi conferred the Stree Shakti Puraskar on International Women’s Day for their outstanding performance in various fields.

A bestseller, “Bitter Chocolate” in English has sold over 30,000 copies ever since it hit the stands in 2000. The book has undergone 11 reprints, and has also been translated into Marathi and Hindi.

“The astounding success of ‘Bitter Chocolate’ continues to be a major source of inspiration for me. I feel that every responsible member of society should come forward to save our children from any type of abuses. It is a major challenge before us.”

In the book, Virani has touched upon a number of queries as to what constitutes sexual abuse, why some men and women sexually abuse children, and what happens to such children when they grow up. She vividly puts forth the devastating consequences of child sexual abuse through a hundred varied case histories in the book.

Virani is confident that she will put down her concerns in a work of fiction as well. “There is no deadline, but I have something in mind. It will be a piece of fiction,” she said.

Her commitment to the cause of preventing children from abuses keeps her busy even today.

“It is an ongoing fight, and will keep going on till childhood stands protected. I understand that the task is difficult, but not impossible if each of us joins hands in creating awareness against child abuse.”

As women can play a key role in preventing child abuse, Virani was all praise for the government’s decision to encourage women for their exemplary services to society.

“It is a welcome move. The women can make a lot of difference in society if they are effectively empowered. For this, a lot needs to be done at the grassroots level,” Virani said.

[ Source: Click here ]

Pope 'led cover-up of child abuse by priests'

2008-03-31T16:22:00.002+05:30

The Pope played a leading role in a systematic cover-up of child sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests, according to a shocking documentary to be screened by the BBC tonight.

In 2001, while he was a cardinal, he issued a secret Vatican edict to Catholic bishops all over the world, instructing them to put the Church's interests ahead of child safety.

The document recommended that rather than reporting sexual abuse to the relevant legal authorities, bishops should encourage the victim, witnesses and perpetrator not to talk about it. And, to keep victims quiet, it threatened that if they repeat the allegations they would be excommunicated.

The Panorama special, Sex Crimes And The Vatican, investigates the details of this little-known document for the first time. The programme also accuses the Catholic Church of knowingly harbouring paedophile clergymen. It reveals that priests accused of child abuse are generally not struck off or arrested but simply moved to another parish, often to reoffend. It gives examples of hush funds being used to silence the victims.

Before being elected as Pope Benedict XVI in April last year, the pontiff was Cardinal Thomas Ratzinger who had, for 24 years, been the head of the powerful Congregation of the Doctrine of The Faith, the department of the Roman Catholic Church charged with promoting Catholic teachings on morals and matters of faith. An arch-Conservative, he was regarded as the 'enforcer' of Pope John Paul II in cracking down on liberal challenges to traditional Catholic teachings.

Five years ago he sent out an updated version of the notorious 1962 Vatican document Crimen Sollicitationis - Latin for The Crime of Solicitation - which laid down the Vatican's strict instructions on covering up sexual scandal. It was regarded as so secret that it came with instructions that bishops had to keep it locked in a safe at all times.

Cardinal Ratzinger reinforced the strict cover-up policy by introducing a new principle: that the Vatican must have what it calls Exclusive Competence. In other words, he commanded that all child abuse allegations should be dealt with direct by Rome.

Patrick Wall, a former Vatican-approved enforcer of the Crimen Sollicitationis in America, tells the programme: "I found out I wasn't working for a holy institution, but an institution that was wholly concentrated on protecting itself."

And Father Tom Doyle, a Vatican lawyer until he was sacked for criticising the church's handling of child abuse claims, says: "What you have here is an explicit written policy to cover up cases of child sexual abuse by the clergy and to punish those who would call attention to these crimes by the churchmen.

"When abusive priests are discovered, the response has been not to investigate and prosecute but to move them from one place to another. So there's total disregard for the victims and for the fact that you are going to have a whole new crop of victims in the next place. This is happening all over the world."

The investigation could not come at a worse time for Pope Benedict, who is desperately trying to mend the Church's relations with the Muslim world after a speech in which he quoted a 14th Century Byzantine emperor who said that Islam was spread by holy war and had brought only evil to the world.

The Panorama programme is presented by Colm O'Gorman, who was raped by a priest when he was 14. He said: "What gets me is that it's the same story every time and every place. Bishops appoint priests who they know have abused children in the past to new parishes and new communities and more abuse happens."

Last night Eileen Shearer, director of the Catholic Office for the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults said: "The Catholic Church in England and Wales (has) established a single set of national policies and procedures for child protection work. We are making excellent progress in protecting children and preventing abuse."

[ Source: Click here ]

Paedophile held for abusing 100 boys

2008-02-04T11:56:00.000+05:30

Chandra Bhushan Pandey & Dipak Mishra
TNN, February 3, 2008

Motihari/Patna: A 40-year-old man who abducted nearly 100 teenaged boys and sexually abused them in captivity has been arrested by the Bihar police. Arjun Sah was caught on Wednesday when he was going from Motihari to Dhaka in a truck. There were two boys, a private school student from Riga in Sitamarhi he had kidnapped on January 23, and another teenager from Bettiah.

"Sah is a paedophile. He was nabbed earlier and had been charged with sodomy. He was released in 2006.", said ADGP (headquarters) Anil Sinha. A resident of Sakara Bazar on the Indo-Nepal border of Bihar's East Champaran district, Sah has also received ransom from the parents of abducted boys, police sources said.

East Champaran SP S K Jha said Sah was arrested after the father of the boy he had kidnapped from Riga filed a missing person's report. The Sitamarhi and Chiriya police sought the help of East Champaran police to rescue the boy. In the process. they arrested Sah and rescued the two boys.

The East Champaran police handed over Sah to Sitamarhi police. During interrogation, Sah confessed that he kidnapped boys to sodomise them. The kidnapped boys also said they were sodomised by Sah repeatedly during captivity.

Jha said Sah stayed in hotels with the boys he kidnapped. Sah is accused of kidnapping 27 children in Vaishali, Gopalganj, East and West Champaran, Uttar Pradesh and Nepal.

Woman has husband arrested for six years of incest

2008-01-05T14:20:00.000+05:30

By Faraz Khan
Saturday, December 01, 2007

KARACHI: A 36-year-old man S has been charged with using physical force and continually raping his daughter 16-year-old T for the last six years.

According to S’s statement to the police, he came home drunk one day and found his daughter, then 10 years old, alone at home. His wife B had gone to her family home along with their two sons.

In his inebriated state, S said that he could not control himself and started making sexual advancements on his daughter. She tried to resist but was overcome by her father who raped her and then beat her and then threatened to kill her and her mother if she told anyone. “The devil took over me, and I couldn’t think straight,” the police reported S as saying.It appears that S encouraged the child to stay at home when the mother went out. B started suspecting something was wrong as there had been a noticeable change in her husband and daughter over the last couple of months. Eventually, the daughter reportedly told her mother about what had happened unleashing devastation on the family.

The next day B confided in her brother. The matter was then taken to the family home where it was decided that it was best if they let the police handle the case. The police immediately lodged an FIR under sections 376 and 506 — rape and physical threat - on behalf of the girl’s mother and took S under custody.

They also sent T for a medical examination over doubts of her potential involvement with a third person and her father’s innocence. However, Abbasi Shaheed Hospital’s WMLO Dr Yasmeen Qamar said that an ultrasound and other tests proven that T had sexual encounters with only one person and that she was not pregnant.

S has been taken to Central Karachi Jail.

[ Source: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C12%5C01%5Cstory_1-12-2007_pg12_1 ]

"New" Askios website launched to mark the "World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse"

2007-11-19T18:19:00.000+05:30

Dear survivors, activists, healers and friends,

It's nearly seven years since I began my website on child abuse survivors, and now that I'm able to shift the site from "askios-ivil.tripod.com" to "askios.tripod.com" (which I hope will be an easier URL for you to remember) I decided to remodel, update and complete the site. I hope you like the new look and content, and find it useful and healing. Those of you who know my fondness for affirmations and inspirational writing will enjoy the little messages at the end of each page, and at the end of the site.

Please note there are special introductory pages that I hope will cater to your specific needs -

For Activists (e.g. NGOs, social workers, and professionals from government, legal, media or other related fields)

For Healers (e.g. doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, counsellors, therapists)

For Friends (friends of survivors, and supportive family members including spouses, parents, or siblings)

and of course, For Survivors.

The Contents page has details of what's on each page. That might be a good place to start your journey through this website, especially if you're looking for a specific topic.

Stay strong,

Nazu.

[ Click here to visit the Askios website.]

A step to healing: Empathetic listening

2007-11-12T17:29:00.000+05:30

By Michael J. Bland, Psy.D., D. Min.
Friday, October 12, 2007

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.

-Matthew 11: 28-30

There are many commonly held beliefs about child sexual abuse. One is that abusers are always men. In fact, reports of female perpetrators are on the rise, involving both male and female victims. At least 5 percent of abusers are known to be women.

Another myth is that the abuser is usually a stranger. In reality, more than 70 percent of abusers are immediate family members or someone very close to the family.

A third myth is that the abuser is always hated by the victim. Often the victim loves and protects the perpetrator. Some children are made to feel "special" and given special attention. Because of this, some survivors deal with the abuse by minimizing it, even into adulthood.

Identifying abused children

No child is psychologically prepared to deal with ongoing or intensive sexual encounters. Even very young children, two or three years old, may sense that the sexual activity is "wrong," but they are unable to stop it. Children are frequently threatened that if they tell anyone, they will be punished or get in trouble or that their family will breakup.

Children subjected to sexual encounters, with or without threats, will develop problems. Those older than five years of age become caught between loyalty to or dependence on the perpetrator, and shame at doing something "wrong." Over time, the child develops low self-esteem, feelings of being worthless or "dirty," and an abnormal view of sexuality.

How does one recognize such children? There are many signs such as:

· Withdrawal and mistrust of adults.
· Relating to others in sexualized or seductive ways.
· Sleep problems, nightmares, or fears of going to bed.
· Frequent accidents or self-injurious behaviors
· Refusal to go to school, or to the doctor, or home (or where the abuser is)
· Secretive and/or unusually aggressive behavior
· Sexual components to drawings and games
· Sexual knowledge or behavior that is abnormally advanced

Identifying adults who may have been abused as children

The effects of early sexual abuse last well into adulthood - affecting relationships, work, family, and life in general. Individual symptomatology tends to fall into four areas:

Damaged goods: Low self-esteem, depression, self-destructiveness, guilt, shame, self-blame, constant search for approval and nurturance.

Betrayal: Impaired ability to trust, blurred boundaries and role confusion, rage and grief, difficulty forming relationships.

Helplessness: Anxiety, fear, tendency towards re-victimization, panic attacks.

Isolation: Sense of being different, stigmatized, poor peer relations.

Adult survivors may demonstrate some of the following symptoms:

· Fear of the dark, fear of sleeping alone, nightmares, or night terrors
· Poor body image or poor self-image in general
· Wearing excessive clothing
· Addictions, compulsive behaviors, obsessions
· Phobias, panic attacks, anxiety disorders, and/or a startle response
· Difficulties with anger and rage
· Issues with trust, intimacy, and relationships
· Issues with boundaries, control, and abandonment
· Pattern of re-victimization - not able to say "no"
· Denial and flashbacks
· Sexual issues and extremes
· Signs of post traumatic stress disorder

Certain issues appear repeatedly. For example, victims typically blame themselves for the abuse. Guilt and shame are expressed, along with intense feelings of rage. If the abuse was committed by an individual of the same sex, questions regarding sexual orientation tend to arise in the victim.

One of the more difficult issues that can surface is the recollection, by some individuals, of experiencing a certain amount of physical pleasure during a molestation or abuse. This adds enormously to the sense of being at fault and feeling "dirty." The sense of isolation, of being "different from the whole world," can paralyze the victim's self-image and extend into relationships. It is only in revealing the secrets and dealing with the pain that survivors of sexual abuse can and do move on with their lives.

Knowing the signs of abuse and being able to identify the possible affects of sexual abuse may enable you to reach out and talk with someone who might be manifesting such symptoms. Offering support and listening empathetically may be a step in a victim's healing process.

Listening empathetically means that, even if only for a moment, the listener connects with, understands, and acknowledges the feelings the other person is experiencing. Empathetic listening requires listening for the meaning and the feelings that are attached to the speaker's words. To get to this point, one must "tune in" to the speaker and discard all opinions about how the speaker should or should not feel or react.

References

---Bland, M.J., (2001). The Psychological and Spiritual Effects of Child Sexual Abuse When the Perpetrator Is a Catholic Priest. Doctoral dissertation, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, 2001.

---Blume, E. Sue, (1989). Secret Survivors: Uncovering incest and its aftereffects. John Wiley & Sons, NJ.

---Heiman, M., (1988). Untangling incestuous bonds: The treatment of sibling incest. In M. Kahn & K. Lewis (Eds.), Siblings in Therapy, Norton & Co., N.Y.

---Hartman, M., Finn, S.E., & Leon, G.R., (1987). Sexual abuse experiences in a clinical population: Comparisons of familial and non-familial abuse. Psychotherapy, 24, 154-159.

Michael J. Bland, a consultant to the Virtus® Programs, is a clinical professional counselor in Oak Lawn, IL and works part-time for the Archdiocese of Chicago's Office of Assistance Ministry as the clinical and pastoral coordinator. This article is the copyrighted property of The National Catholic Risk Retention Group, Inc. (Copyright © 1999-2007 by the National Catholic Risk Retention Group, Inc., all rights reserved), and is reprinted here with permission. For more information about VIRTUS@Online or other VIRTUS® services, visit www.virtus.org or call (888) 847-8870. This is the 72nd in a series of feature stories, commentary and analysis, compiled and edited by an advisory group to the Media Relations Office of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, through which the articles are distributed. For particular help, contact the Office of Assistance Ministry, (800) 355-2545 or (213) 637-7650.

[Source: http://www.the-tidings.com/2007/101207/healing.htm]

[Thanks to Askios for the link.]

Child Porn Unchecked Online

2007-11-12T17:11:00.000+05:30

Read the article in the link below:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/askios/message/910

How long will the government maintain that there is no need to define Child Abuse separately in the Indian Penal Code?

myths and facts

2007-10-29T16:43:00.000+05:30

The first response the majority of people form when hearing of sexual child abuse or incest is denial: “I do not have to be concerned about that in my community.” “That would never happen in my family.”

The unbelievable reality is that a person who sexually abuses children may seem very average and ordinary to the world. He/she may be a leader in the church, in the community or in business, a sports coach, scout leader, or celebrity. Sex offenders do not fit a classic stereotype and are not necessarily uneducated, unemployed, impoverished or an alcoholic.

The majority of people find sexual abuse and incest even more difficult to believe or accept when the sex offender is someone they like, admire, love, and/or marry. Tragically, the unwillingness to accept the facts concerning sex offenders leaves children vulnerable to becoming victims and increases the likelihood they will be abused.

Myth: Rape/incest runs in the family--it is in the genes.

Fact: Rape is not in the genes in the family of someone who rapes. Rape is perpetrated by someone who is acting out rage. Physical and sexual child abuse are the majority factor in creating the level of rage that compels anyone to commit rape, domestic violence or murder. We have known for a long time that the one commonality among rapists is physical and/or sexual child abuse. Serial killer, Ted Bundy is a classic example of this phenomenon. Since 80% of sexual child abuse survivors are sexually abused by family members there are usually several generations within a rapist's family--sometimes both maternal and paternal. Current statistics reveal 70% of children are physically abused once a week. It is believed the number of children who are physically abused has decreased in the past 15 years. However, the current rapists in society would have grown up in the era when physical abuse was more prominent, therefore, we can assume there is a high percentage of people, who are potential rapists when we consider date rape and rape in domestic violence, which is seldom reported or if it is reported, is seldom prosecuted. Therefore, society has no way to access the number of rapes committed per capita.

Myth: Children lie or fantasize about sexual activities with adults.

Fact: Using developmental terms, young children cannot make up explicit sexual information. They must be exposed to it to speak about it. Sometimes a parent will coach a child to report sexual abuse falsely. The key indicators of the falseness in such a report are the child's inability to describe explicit details, the inability to illustrate the act, or gross inconsistencies within the account.

Myth: Most victims of sexual abuse are teenaged girls.

Fact: While more girls than boys are sexually abused, many are abused before their first birthday.

Myth: Boys can't be sexually abused.

Fact: Masculine gender socialization instills in boys the belief they are to be strong; they should learn to protect themselves. In truth, boys are children and are as vulnerable as girls. They cannot really fight back against the sex offender. A sex offender generally has greater size, strength, knowledge, or a position of authority, using such resources as money or other bribes, or outright threats—whatever advantage the sex offender can take to get what they want.

Myth: Sexual abuse of a child is usually an isolated, one-time incident.

Fact: Child sexual abuse and incest occurrences develop gradually, over time; often, repeat occurrences are generally the rule rather than the exception.

Myth: Children will naturally outgrow the effects of sexual abuse or incest.

Fact: Sexual abuse or incest affects every aspect of human development. The damage is profound, extensive and pervasive. It is deeper than the physical and emotional level—it is a soul injury that requires multifaceted, multidimensional, therapeutic processing conducted by a professional who specializes in sexual abuse and incest trauma recovery.

Myth: Non-violent sexual behavior between a child and an adult is not emotionally damaging to the child.

Fact: Although child sexual abuse often involves subtle rather than extreme force, all survivors experience confusion, shame, guilt, anger, as well as a lowered sense of self-esteem; these are classic aftereffects, although they may not initially reveal obvious signs.

Myth: Child molesters are all, ‘Dirty old men.’

Fact: In a recent study of convicted child sex offenders, 80% committed their first offense before age 30.

Myth: Children provoke sexual abuse by their seductive behavior.

Fact: Seductive behavior may be the result, but is never the cause of sexual abuse. Amy Fisher, the Long Island teenager who shot her sex offender's wife in the face and whom the media dubbed, Lolita having an affair with a married man, is a perfect example of this myth. During her trial for attempting to kill Joey Buttafuoco's wife, Amy Fisher revealed that she had been sexually abused before her abuse by Buttafuoco. Her behavior that many considered seductive and promiscuous was, in fact, a result of prior abuse. However, regardless of the victim's behavior or reason for such behavior, the responsibility for appropriate behavior always lays with the adult, not the child. A sixteen-year-old girl is no match for the cunning and streetwise tactics of a man twice her age, therefore, the ability to affect adult consent is unreasonable to expect.

Myth: If children wanted to avoid sexual advances of adults, or persons in positions of greater power, they could say, stop or no.

Fact: Children generally do not question the behavior of adults. In addition, bribes, threats, flattery, trickery and use of authority coerce them into cooperation and compliance.

Myth: When a child is sexually abused, it is immediately apparent.

Fact: In cases of incest against children, as much as the sex offender might be hurting the victim, the child loves him or her and needs her family. Therefore, she convinces herself that she is somehow causing him or her to behave this way, and she remains silent. In her confusion of loyalty to her sex offender, she protects him or her by holding the secret. Thus, she carries the shame and guilt. In cases regarding sexual abuse and incest, the victim often believes that she has cooperated with the sex offender in some way and places inappropriate blame on herself. Therefore, although with tremendous suffering, she hides her pain through denial, dissociation, numbing, zoning out, hyperactivity, as well as other distracting behaviors. However, the aware parent would recognize these behaviors as a sign that something is wrong.

Myth: When the sexual abuse victim is male, male homosexuals are the sex offenders.

Fact: Heterosexual men, who do not find sex with other men satisfactory, perpetrate most child sexual abuse. Many child molesters, even though they are heterosexual, abuse both boys and girls.

Myth: Boys abused by males are or will become homosexual.

Fact: Whether victimized by males or females, boys or girls, premature sexual experiences are damaging in many ways, including confusion about their sexual identity and orientation.

Myth: When a boy and a woman take part in sexual behavior and it is the boy's idea, he is not being abused.

Fact: Child abuse is an act of power by which an adult uses a child. Abuse is abuse; a woman engaging in sexual behavior with a male child is still sexually abusive, even if she thinks he initiated the contact.

Myth: If the sex offender is female, the boy or adolescent is fortunate to have been initiated into heterosexual activity.

Fact: Premature or coerced sex, whether by a mother, aunt, sister, babysitter or other female causes confusion, at best, and rage, depression or other problems in more negative circumstances. Whether male or female, to be used as a sexual object is always abusive and damaging.

Myth: If the child experiences sexual arousal or orgasm from abuse, he or she has been a willing participant or enjoyed it.

Fact: Children can respond physically to stimulation (get an erection) even in traumatic or painful sexual situations. A sex offender can maintain secrecy by labeling the child's sexual response as an indication of his or her willingness to participate. You liked it, you wanted it. The survivor is then manipulated with their own guilt and shame because they experienced physical arousal while being abused. Physical, visual or auditory stimulation is likely to occur in a sexual situation. It does not mean the child wanted the experience or understood what it meant.

Myth: Males who were sexually abused as boys all grow up to sexually abuse children.

Fact: Only some sexually abused boys become sex offenders.

Myth: Boys are less traumatized as victims of sexual abuse than girls.

Fact: Studies show that long-term effects are equally damaging for either sex. Ironically, males may be more damaged by society's refusal or reluctance to accept their victimization, and by their own resultant belief that they must ‘tough it out’ in silence.

Myth: If a child is sexually active with his or her peers, then it is not sexual abuse.

Fact: The act is abusive if the child is induced into sexual activity with anyone who is in a position of greater power, whether that power is derived through the sex offender's age, size, status, or relationship. A child who cannot refuse, or who believes she or he cannot refuse, is a child who has been violated.

Unless and until, society focuses on sexual child abuse prevention, before the damage is done, sexual abuse of children will continue to proliferate. Child sexual abuse is the greatest hidden epidemic in the world.

Dorothy M. Neddermeyer, PhD, author, "If I'd Only Known...Sexual Abuse in or Out of the Family: A Guide to Prevention, specializes in: Mind, Body, Spirit healing and Physical/Sexual Abuse Prevention and Recovery. As an inspirational leader, Dr. Neddermeyer empowers people to view life's challenges as an opportunity for Personal/Professional Growth and Spiritual Awakening

Article Source:

Sexual assault: dark secrets

2007-10-24T19:30:00.000+05:30

By Hilary Russ
STAFF WRITER, Cape Cod Times
September 23, 2007

The Yarmouth girl had a secret about her stepdad.

He molested her, as he had other kids. Yet he seems to haunt her more than ever, years later, even after she finally came forward and helped send him to prison for the abuse.

Now an older teenager, she is running wild, her mom "Sandy" recently told the Times.

"She just doesn't understand, because we had such a perfect life, why he did it," Sandy said. "She wants to know why, and there's not an answer."

Young, female and now having nightmares about a man she thought she knew — it's the most common profile of a sexual assault victim in Massachusetts and throughout the country.

While you might not hear much about them — media outlets don't cover as many sexual crimes as actually occur, in part because of issues with victim's privacy — survivors are out there.
Lots of them. More than you might want to know.

High-profile cases make national news and frightening local instances of stranger rape put communities on alert. But perpetrators are more often hiding in plain sight. They're often acquaintances, partners and family members.

About a third of criminal cases in all the Cape and Islands' superior courts combined — Barnstable and the smaller Nantucket and Dukes courts — involve sexual assault, according to Brian Glenny, Cape and Islands first assistant district attorney. Allegations range from threats to horrifyingly violent or grossly perverted abuse.

And the cases that make it to court, or get reported to police at all, are only a portion of all the sexual assaults that likely occur, according to experts. "The number of victims that I've worked with personally, who have not reported, is stunning," said Sheridan Haines, executive director of the Governor's Council to Address Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence, which Gov. Deval Patrick re-established in June.

Most sexual assault victims are women, they can also be men or boys, old or young, of any ethnicity, of any sexuality.

The same is true for perpetrators. Children attack children, men attack men, mothers assault daughters. Men break into homes or rape a woman in the bushes as she walks down a dark street. Any scenario you can think of has probably happened, here on the Cape.

But more often than not, victims are young women whose perpetrators are men they already know. A date or boyfriend or husband. A father. A grandfather.

Someone she trusts. Someone she loves.

Most victims know attackers
"When people think of sex crimes, they think of strangers. They think of streets. They don't understand that the majority of sex crimes happen behind closed doors, committed by parents and siblings and partners," said Jack Levin, professor of sociology and criminology at Northeastern University, "not by the stranger our mothers warned us about."

That's what happened to the Yarmouth girl, and it ripped the man she trusted out of her life and the lives of her family.

He had touched her body, her buttocks and vagina. He raped her, forced her to give him oral sex and touch his genitals (he was later cleared on some charges, convicted on others). She was 7 for much of the abuse, which happened repeatedly, at home.

But that's just what happened to her. After the girl, now in her late teens, came forward, her mother lost a husband, her siblings a father. And she lost a caregiver she loved. She feels his loss, and she feels guilty for taking him away from his new baby when he went to prison, even though the teen knows she may have stopped him from assaulting other kids.

"She doesn't believe there's a God," Sandy said. "She believes if there was a God, he wouldn't have allowed this to happen to her. To the family."

"You ruined my life"
Sandy and her now ex-husband didn't exactly start out on the right path together, and they've both had brushes with the law.

She already had children, was on welfare and battling cancer. He was dealing drugs. But they both started working, built careers and earned a good living, she said.

All the while, his family was keeping his secret. A niece disclosed sexual assault after Sandy refused to continue paying out what she later realized was hush money. One of Sandy's younger children said that he had been molesting her, too. "Daddy gave me boo boos," the 3-year-old, his biological child, told Sandy at the time.

Violence was also part of the family's history. Five years before they married, Sandy took out restraining orders against him — one lasted for a year — for physical abuse, including an attempt to push her off a balcony, according to court documents.

When Sandy told her then-husband's father about the sexual abuse, she said the older man put a gun down her throat lest she go forward with the allegations.

But when Sandy confronted her husband, tears rolled down his cheeks, she said. He didn't deny it. They were on the beach.

"I just started poundin' on him," she said. "People came to break us up."

Sandy later tried running over him with her car and beating down his door with an aluminum bat, she admitted, her anger still palpable years later as she related the incidents.

Sandy's been in therapy for years and her kids have gone in and out of counseling. Sometimes, she said, she had to physically drag them to the therapist to get help. "I just couldn't do it no more."

Not that they couldn't use it. "She's gone buck wild," Sandy said of her teenage daughter, a round-faced, curly-haired girl who used to get good grades.

"I tell her, 'Don't let this ruin your life,'" Sandy said.

"'No, you (expletive deleted), you ruined my life,'" she said her daughter yells back.

Sandy admitted to once hitting the girl after she spat out a string of obscenities at her at the breakfast table in front of the other kids.

The teenager's cell phone was disconnected and the girl did not attend an interview the Times scheduled through her mother.

The girl has post-traumatic stress disorder and may be suicidal, her mom said.

Rape victims are six times more likely to suffer PTSD than non-victims, and three times more likely to suffer from major depression, according to a 2003 survey of adult female rape victims in Massachusetts. Rape victims also show substantially increased risk of suicide attempts and use of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs, studies show.

"I had this sweet little innocent girl at one time," Sandy said. "I thought the trial was going to help (my daughter). It didn't. It really made matters worse."

Cape family nightmare
A Marstons Mills girl was just 3 when she asked her mother the question that would later divide the family: "Mommy, when will I get a tail like Uncle D?"

"I froze," her mom, "Kristen," said in a recent interview.

She asked her toddler questions, but the girl kept repeating everything she said. Crying, Kristen called her husband. Neither one knew what to do.

The couple sent their daughter to Kristen's mother's house for the night so they could talk to Uncle D, who was just 16 and staying with them to try to improve his schooling.

"He was really good with (my daughter). Really good," Kristen said. "You thought, wow, what a great uncle."

That night, they confronted him. Kristen asked him, "What have you done to her?"

"He just started crying and crying, saying that he loved her and, you know, he would never hurt her. And I felt bad that I was accusing him of something," Kristen said. "I was in denial. I was young. I was 21. You didn't really hear much about sexual abuse. You saw it on the TV, you thought that it was everywhere else but here. So we believed him."

Uncle D told them the girl could have walked in on him while he used the restroom. They bought it. Everything seemed fine. He later moved out.

In truth, he had been molesting the girl while he played hide and seek with her outside, while her mother was in the house. "That's how quick stuff can happen, and I had no idea — at all," Kristen said.

Three years later in Tennessee, the girl suddenly refused to say goodbye to Uncle D after a family vacation.

"I can remember being embarrassed," Kristen said of her daughter's behavior. Again, he had molested her, following her into a bathroom while everyone was outside the home they were visiting. The incident triggered old memories, her mom said.

Still, the shy girl didn't tell her parents.

Finally, later that year, Kristen was driving her daughter to ballet practice and told her that Uncle D would be there. "And she just started screaming, 'No, no, no! Don't you remember? Don't you remember? He showed me his privates,'" Kristen recalled. "So I had to keep myself together, and I told her he would never come. I brought her into dance and then just kind of lost it. I still had no idea where to go, what to do."

The next day, she called a guidance counselor at school, who gave her numbers for Children's Cove in Barnstable.

Then she had to fill out a police report.

"That was scary. I thought, 'Oh my gosh, are they gonna take the kids? Is this it? Did I do something wrong?" Kristen said. "I was going back to when she was 3. I didn't do anything, so I totally put the blame on myself."

Fair or not, blame and guilt are frequent companions to disclosures of sexual assault. Victims and their loved ones blame each other, police, the legal system, school teachers, social workers. Blaming the perpetrator doesn't seem to provide solace to many whose lives are ravaged.

Uncle D had also molested another cousin, and Kristen called the parents — her husband's brother and his wife — to let them know. They stopped talking to Kristen's family. Eventually, Kristen's husband's side of the family stopped talking to them altogether.

"She blamed herself for daddy losing his parents," Kristen said of her daughter's perception of the family discord. "We turn that around and say because she told, she saved (our) other two kids. As much as we tell her that, do I think she really believes it? No."

Kristen is now worried that her timid daughter won't speak up if something bad happens to her again. In part, that's because despite Kristen's police report and personal sleuthing to track down Uncle D, who is likely in another state, he's never been interviewed or charged by officials, Kristen said.

"Why would she say anything? It's hard work to deal with bad stuff. It causes a lot of turmoil, and then nothing happens. I don't think in a child's eyes, she can see that, 'Oh, I've had therapy and I've moved on,'" Kristen said.

How sexual assault survivors fare after their ordeal depends on a complicated mix of factors, said Lysetta Hurge-Putnam. As executive director of Independence House, which provides free services for sexual assault and domestic violence survivors on the Cape, she has dealt mostly with adults. "There's a whole range of responses," she said.

Victims may have flashbacks or nightmares, and many have difficulties working, studying or sleeping. They may develop a lack of trust in themselves. Others can't differentiate between rape, which is forced or coerced, and intimacy, in which the person makes his or her own choice about their sexual acts.

"But all survivors describe feeling very violated, betrayed," Hurge-Putnam said.

Kristen wonders how much the abuse has molded her daughter. But time, at least, seems to

have been a salve.

"Well, when I was younger it was in the front of my mind. And I was more sad," the gangly girl, not yet a teenager, said quietly in an interview with the Times.

"But now that it's in the back of my mind, I'm happier."

Survivors, speak up, break your agonizing silence

2007-10-24T19:16:00.000+05:30

People are listening, you are NOT alone. Share your stories in Sattva:

http://sattva-blog.blogspot.com/

November 19 - World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse

2007-10-24T18:57:00.000+05:30

Have a look at the Open Letter and the Poster of WWSF (Women's World Summit Foundation) on the World Day coming up soon:

http://www.woman.ch/children/1-openletter.php

Pedophiles drawn to ESL jobs, groups warn

2007-10-24T18:44:00.000+05:30

Adrian Humphreys , National Post

Published: Wednesday, October 17, 2007

As the international hunt continues for a Canadian teacher suspected of sexually abusing children in Asia, child-protection activists are warning that pedophiles are increasingly seeking work overseas as English-language instructors as a way to feed their illicit desires.
Christopher Paul Neil, 32, was an English-as-a-second-language teacher in Korea when Interpol released his photograph and named him as a man sexually abusing young children in Southeast Asia in pictures shared over the Internet.

The Maple Ridge, B.C., man remains a fugitive and was last seen arriving in Thailand at Bangkok's international airport last Thursday on a flight from South Korea.
He had worked at several schools in South Korea for five years, although the photographs of young boys engaged in sex acts were taken in Vietnam and Cambodia.

"The teaching profession is very, very vulnerable. The English-language teachers are so needed, in such demand. It is such a status thing to have an English teacher at a school," said Rosalind Prober, president of Beyond Borders, a Canadian organization working to protect children from sexual exploitation and abuse.

A culture of reverence toward teachers in some of the countries where child sexual exploitation is common adds to the fears that teachers avoid close scrutiny.

And teaching, of course, puts teachers close to children.

"It's a dirty secret, if you will, that these individuals will try and go in under that sort of cover to have ready access to children," said Jamie McIntosh, executive director of International Justice Mission Canada, an organization that helps rescue children from exploitation abroad.

A number of South Asian and Central American countries in need of teachers are also known for child-sex tourism.

"Pedophiles are drawn to places where they think they can hide. They are attracted to environments where they think they can get away with it," Mr. McIntosh said.

Child-sex-crime investigators are aware of the attractiveness that an ESL job in Asia might hold for a pedophile.

"We do hear stories, complaints if you will, that some of these people have opportunity to work abroad," said Detective-Sergeant Kim Scanlan, head of the Toronto Police sex-crimes unit.

"Sometimes pedophiles set themselves up in these types of positions, specifically in countries that are vulnerable - anything that puts a pedophile closer to their interest, their fantasy to be with children," she said.

The RCMP's national child exploitation co-ordination centre is studying anecdotal reports of deviant overseas ESL teachers to see if there are valid statistics to back up concern of it being an emerging trend, said Staff Sergeant Rick Greenwood, the centre's operations manager.

As in any activity anywhere that puts adults close to children, accreditation and background checks are key, he said.

"Some agencies are very good and some less so," Staff Sgt. Greenwood said.

ESL teachers, meanwhile, worry the attention to the case makes them all look dirty.

"I fear that everyone who hears I teach English in Asia will suddenly think I'm there to diddle the kids. It makes me sick, physically sick," said one veteran teacher who asked that his name not be published.

Members of online chat groups for ESL teachers, including one frequented by Mr. Neil before he was named as a pedophile suspect, have also expressed concern.

"When you think about the tireless volunteers who give their time, it must be very hard for them - most of them are there for the right reasons," Det.-Sgt. Scanlan said.

Meanwhile, police are wondering where Mr. Neil is.

With all of the media reports internationally - receiving an unusual amount of attention in Thailand, for instance - and so many pictures of him being printed and broadcast, investigators are surprised he is still at large, leading to suggestions he may have killed himself because of the publicity.

Others suggest he may have headed to Thailand to visit one of the private cosmetic surgery clinics found in Bangkok.

"I thought he would have been found by now," said Staff Sgt. Greenwood.

14 years, countless cases

2007-10-24T18:32:00.000+05:30

(As told to Namita Kohli),
Hindustan Times

October 14, 2007

"I have lost count of the number of rescue operations I’ve been part of,” says 39-year-old Ravi Kant, who has been working against human traffickers for the last 14 years. Since 2001, Kant has been running his NGO Shakti Vahini in Uttar Pradesh. Here, he narrates some of his field experiences — a grim reminder of the crime that’s taking place somewhere around our comfort zones.

December 2006, Faridabad (UP): This was a very disturbing case of child sexual abuse. A young couple had brought three minor girls to Faridabad for domestic work. The children, who were not even in their teens, were kept captive in the toilet. They were served food on the toilet floor, beaten and sexually abused. I saw injury marks on their bodies. When we reached the house, the lady refused to open the door, but later gave in. The police arrested the couple, but there was a lot of pressure to release them. As for the girls, they were very traumatised and could barely speak. To add insult to injury, the victims are sometimes made to sit on the floors to narrate their stories.

December 2006, Jind (Haryana): One Ajmer Singh lured a 13-year-old girl, Tripala, from Jharkhand on the pretext of marrying her. She was taken to a farmhouse where she was asked to have sex with his brother. When she refused, Singh slit her throat. I traced her parents to Ranchi. When I broke the news of her murder to them, they were shattered. In many such forced marriages, parents back home are unaware of their daughter’s fate.

December 2006, Delhi: One night, I got a call from the local informants about Manju. She had been trafficked from Latur, Maharashtra, to a brothel in Kamala market. When I reached the spot with my team some 25 minutes later, their musclemen were hanging around, as always. The senior women in the brothel, who are usually aware of the law, tried to stop us by raising a hue and cry. Usually, in such times, they hide the victim in a water tank or the attic. But Manju was in a room. She had managed to persuade another victim to come to us. The girls had been beaten, raped, and had faced a lot of violence. As we took them out, all sorts of threat followed. ‘Dekh lenge, aapne accha nahi kiya,’ they said. The threats and menacing glares followed us in court as well. In places like Delhi, rescue operations are easier. But in smaller cities like Agra and Meerut, the local police are at times hand-in-glove with brothel-owners, making the operation difficult.

October 2005, Haryana: Three girls from Assam and West Bengal were trafficked to Mewat and were about to be sold for marriage. The whole village was up in arms against the rescue operation. Even the police were sceptical. Some violence also took place. It took us two to three hours to counsel them. ‘What would you do if these were your daughters? These are human beings, they can’t be sold like property,’ we appealed to them. They finally gave in.

Israel - Almost 90% of Children Reported Sexual Assault

2007-10-24T18:11:00.000+05:30

Mon 15-Oct-2007, 09:00 ET

Newswise — Almost 90% of teenagers aged 12-18 claim to have been victims of some level of sexual violence, according to a study conducted jointly by the University of Haifa and Ben Gurion University. The research surveyed 1,036 high school students. Additionally, 82% of the boys and 76% of the girls reported said that they had been subjects of violent physical assault.

Prof. Rachel Lev-Wiesel from the University of Haifa's School of Social Work, one of the authors of the study, noted that the results showed a distressing increase in the incidence of violence – both sexual and physical - over the past few years. The number of criminal files opened by the police for assault against children rose from 6,370 in 1998 to 8,805 in 2005. According to the National Council for the Child, the number of children treated for suspected violent attacks or abuse in 2005 stood at more than 37,000, a rise of 120% over the past decade. Of the 37,000, 30.5% were reported physical violence, 9.9% sexual, 13% psychological and 36.8% varying degrees of neglect.

Prof. Lev-Wiesel stressed that the aim of the research was to examine the personal and social factors that help adolescents cope with the trauma of a violent assault. A questionnaire was completed anonymously by over 1,000 high school students. The questionnaire measured six variables: demography, physical and sexual assaults, PTSD, potency and social support from family and friends.

According to the researchers, there is a distinct correlation between a child's feeling of potency and the level of traumatic symptoms exhibited following a violent attack. The study found a distinctive difference in the personal resources and the level of psychological distress of the children who suffered violent attacks as opposed to those who did not – whether the violence was limited to one incident or continuing and whether the attack was considered minor or severe. Boys in the study reported a higher incidence of sexual and physical violence than girls.

"The results of the research show that a feeling of potency and support of family and friends are important resources which have the potential to reduce the resulting trauma following assault. In addition to the importance of developing programs to decrease the incidence of violence, these is a need for programs for empowerment and strengthening personal resources that will protect those who have already fallen victim to violence," summarized Prof. Lev-Wiesel.

The results of the study were presented at a conference, held on October 10, 2007, in cooperation with the University of Haifa, announcing the establishment of a non-profit organization founded by academics, professionals in the fields of social services and healthcare, lawmakers and the media to fight the rising incidence of violence and propose concrete solutions for aiding victims.

Inside Karen’s Crowded Mind

2007-10-24T17:49:00.000+05:30

By Anne Underwood NEWSWEEK
Oct 29, 2007 Issue

Even for a psychiatric patient, Karen Overhill seemed unusually devoid of hope on the day in 1989 she walked into the Chicago office of Dr. Richard Baer. As weeks of therapy grew into months, antidepressants didn't help her, at least not consistently. She was suicidal—and the flat, emotionless way she stated her wish to die made Baer fear that she might actually follow through. Eventually, Karen began to volunteer stories of childhood abuse. And she mentioned odd memory lapses. She would find herself in strange places with no awareness of how she'd gotten there. She couldn't even remember having had sex with her husband, although she must have, since they had two children.

Baer suspected a much deeper problem than the depression and suicidal thoughts Karen admitted to. Still, he kept his speculation to himself during the first four years of therapy, for fear of planting ideas in Karen's mind. He waited for her to volunteer the information, and in a way, she finally did. In November 1993, an envelope with Karen's return address arrived in the mail. Inside was a single sheet of lined paper and a letter written in a child's penciled scrawl. "My name is Claire," it began. "I am 7 years old. I live inside Karen."

The remarkable medical journey that ensued is the subject of Baer's new book, "Switching Time." It recounts the 17-year course of Karen's therapy in all its painful detail and sheds new light on multiple personality disorder (MPD), the controversial illness that afflicted her. (Karen Overhill is a pseudonym Baer created to protect his patient and her family.) The book describes the challenges Baer faced as more and more of Karen's alter egos emerged—men, women and children—a total of 17, each with his or her own character traits, mental problems and agenda. Baer had to get to know them all, then persuade them to wipe out their individual identities by merging into one. It was the defining case of his career—and one that may have saved Karen's life.

But was Karen's disorder real? There have been allegations that some purported MPD sufferers were just publicity seekers. Yet Baer doesn't have the slightest doubt. As he points out, there are easier ways to gain notoriety than 17 years of therapy. And how could a poseur have maintained each alter's distinct memories, personality, voice and mannerisms for years, never mixing them up? "Meryl Streep couldn't have done it," he says. The alters even wrote him letters in different handwriting.

Still, it's easy to see why MPD remains controversial. Although the condition has been observed for 200 years—and is officially recognized by the American Psychiatric Association under the formal name "dissociative identity disorder"—it is rare enough that most therapists never treat a case. Some psychiatrists doubt that it exists at all, claiming it is the product of suggestion. In some cases, they're probably right. The 1973 best seller "Sybil" led to a wave of diagnoses by therapists who didn't really understand the condition. One psychiatric hospital in Maryland "had a whole ward with patients—some male, some female, some mooing like cows or barking like dogs," says Dr. Paul McHugh, former chair of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins and a leading skeptic. It didn't help that both the made-for-TV movie version of "Sybil," which starred Sally Field, and the 1957 film "The Three Faces of Eve" gave exaggerated portrayals of radical personality shifts, which made MPD seem more bizarre than believable—or that the disorder was later enmeshed in the controversy over false "recovered memories" of childhood abuse. MPD became an embarrassing diagnosis in the psychiatric community.

But it didn't go away. Dr. Frank Putnam—who has studied the condition extensively, first at the National Institute of Mental Health and now at Cincinnati Children's Hospital—continues to receive calls from psychiatrists around the country who are stunned when a patient of theirs turns out to have the disorder. "There's nothing like seeing a patient who has it to make you believe," he says. Today there are clearer diagnostic criteria and a better understanding of the causes. The condition, says Dr. Herbert Speigel, who occasionally treated Sybil during her therapist's absence, is "real, but rare."

That's a good thing, given the way it's believed to begin. According to psychiatrists, MPD arises primarily in children who are subjected to severe physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Having no other escape, they create different personalities to handle different parts of their troubled lives—then wall the personalities off from one another with mental barriers, so that no single persona has to handle too much. "As a child, if Daddy is about to do bad things to you, you say, 'I'll go to my secret place where it's not happening to me, but to some other little girl'," says Putnam.

To a lesser extent, the same thing happens routinely to trauma victims when they experience numbing, detachment and even out-of-body experiences. "Rape victims often say that during the rape, they saw themselves floating above the person, feeling sorry for her," says Dr. David Spiegel, associate chair of psychiatry at Stanford and co-editor of a new textbook on traumatic dissociation. The difference is that adults who detach themselves in this way usually reintegrate later. Chronically abused children may not, because their sense of identity is still malleable—and because the trauma is so persistent.

The abuse Karen Overhill endured, as described in Baer's book, was almost inhuman. While she was still in grade school, her father and grandfather subjected her to late-night, quasi-religious rituals, in which they strapped her to tables and told her she was evil. Saying that "God wanted her to suffer," they stuck her with pins and violated her prepubescent body with electric cattle prods, screwdrivers, knives and even crucifixes. They shut her into coffins. They dunked her in cold water. Her mother, who seemed incapable of acknowledging the atrocities, maintained deniability by taking a night job. It is impossible to verify these accounts, but in 1993, Karen's father was convicted on 19 counts of sexually molesting his granddaughter, Karen's niece.

The creation of separate alters may seem a bizarre way to cope, but it's not as if patients imagine themselves as Cleopatra or Napoleon. Each persona handles a different aspect of the sufferer's life. As Baer explains in his book, an alter named Claire would emerge when Karen was dragged from bed at night, so that Karen had little memory of the abuse the next day. When the torture began, Miles would take over. As a boy, he couldn't be violated in the same way and therefore couldn't fully absorb it mentally. Elise was created so that Karen could go to school the next day and act normal, having donned long pants and sleeves to cover the bruises. Sidney was the ball-playing child who related to Karen's father as if nothing was amiss, allowing Karen to survive in a household where, as a young girl, she was dependent on her dad. Lacking decent parents of her own, Karen even created Katherine and Holdon to be the responsible adults in her life, modeling them on figures she saw in sitcoms like "Father Knows Best" and "The Dick Van Dyke Show." The alters would come and go as needed, taking over Karen's conscious thoughts. When she regained awareness, all she knew was that she had "lost time."

This system protected Karen as a child, but in her late 20s, she descended into a deep depression that sent her to Dr. Baer. The key to treatment was reintegrating the alters into the single personality Karen has today. It was a painstaking process, convincing each alter to merge, but it worked. With each reintegration, says Baer, Karen acquired that alter's memories and character traits—strength, humor, compassion, anger. With each one, she became a more colorful, complete version of herself. Still, she was fragile. It took an additional eight years of therapy to build up her self- esteem. Today, meeting with a reporter in her midwestern apartment, she projects warmth, openness and a remarkable lack of rancor. Her alters would be proud.

Adolescent boys, not girls, are bigger victims of forced sex

2007-10-22T17:07:00.000+05:30

Check out the article by Vineeta Pandey in today's DNA. Click here

Documentary on sexual abuse is a portrait of healing

2007-10-15T11:38:00.000+05:30

By Florangela Davila
Seattle Times TV writer

"Stories of Silence: Recovering from Sexual Abuse," an hour-length documentary airing on KCTS tonight, turns the spotlight on how men have healed after the trauma. And that was exactly Seattle filmmaker Ethan Delavan's point.

"Remember that Clint Eastwood movie 'Mystic River?' I loved it and I hated it," Delavan said in an interview recently. "The victim, for the whole movie, was a useless twit. There's this notion that when someone's abused that their life is ruined. What I wanted to do, in this film, is to show the getting better. And the different ways men have."

Delavan knows all the experience: He was abused by an uncle in Utah and in Texas when he was about 8.

He talks about it in the film; so do his parents, a brother and a cousin. But these interviews are just part of a chorus of recollections from many men and their family members talking about sexual abuse.

Delavan didn't think his family could tolerate the kind of in-depth interviewing and reporting he would need to do to turn a single narrative about his own life.

He also didn't want to narrow the film to one particular type of abuse, namely the sexual abuse by Catholic priests. "Although I could have gone in depth about so much betrayal by the church," he says about the stories he collected from some of his interviewees.

Rather, he wanted his starting point to be: "It happened. Now, what?"

"How do we deal? How do we become a whole person and have whole relationships?"

That's the third phase of such an experience. First, you're a victim. Then, a survivor. Finally, you find a kind of voice.

"For men it's not usually OK to show our feelings, to be vulnerable. But a group of men getting together saying 'We're hurt' is a huge relief. It's a relief for men to be able to open up."

This is the first feature-length documentary for Delavan, 36, who teaches media arts at Seattle Country Day School. Some of the school parents, in fact, helped finance the film, which cost some $15,000 and six years to make.

Delavan attended a 2001 National Organization on Male Sexual Victimization conference as well as a 2003 Survivors Network of those Abused By Priests to gather footage. He weaves in courtroom footage of one man who took his abuser to trial. He films therapists. He shows us one man singing a song and another man showing off his upper-body tattoo. "Here's where the pedophile priest lies," the man says pointing to an image on his chest.

The men are named, but they're introduced so rapidly it's hard to keep track of who's who. Or where's where: We see one man with his family in the backyard, the tattoo guy talking from the side of a road, but both men could be speaking from Anywhere, U.S.A.

Those could be serious turnoffs for viewers who prefer a one-hour documentary to have a more conventional beginning, middle and end; to be more character-driven than topic driven; to even, simply, include some statistics. What's the national number for the men who've been sexually abused?

At a screening for survivors, however, Delavan received a standing ovation.

"One message I wanted to get across is that there is an end to the pain. And you do regain yourself. You do."

And if there was any way for him to go back in time, to not have been abused, Delavan says in the film that he would not. Because, he says, it's made him who he is today.

[ Source: Askios ]

Sex, lies and children

2007-10-12T09:58:00.000+05:30

India’s best kept dirty secret is out. More children are sexually abused in our country than anywhere else in the world

Nishi Malhotra, Chandigarh

It was back in the early 1980s that late actress Parveen Babi made a statement about most Indian girls not being virgins. What she meant was that they are sexually abused within the intimacy of their own joint family systems well before they begin dating or get married. I was studying in Delhi University at that time and remember the debates it sparked off in college hostels. One late evening, 12 girls gathered in a dorm room to argue over what Babi, who was no authority on the subject, had so casually said, and wondered if it could possibly be true. Finally, a secret vote on paper chits was taken— everyone present had to write yes or no in answer to the simple question, “Were you sexually molested as a child, or did anyone ever attempt to molest you?” Not a scientific survey and not a significant sample considering the mostly upper and middle class background of the girls present—but nine out of 12 chits came back with a ‘yes’ scrawled across them.

India’s best kept dirty secret now has an official stamp on it. A new government report, Study on Child Abuse: India 2007, published by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, says, “India has the world’s largest number of sexually abused children, with a child below 16 years raped every 155th minute, a child below ten every 13th hour, and one in every ten children sexually abused at any point in time.”

Conducted across 13 states (Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Delhi and Bihar are the worst offenders), the report reveals that a shocking 53.22 per cent of all Indian children are sexually abused and 70 per cent keep silent about what happens to them, neither reporting the abuse to parents nor to the police. The actual number has to be higher than the 53 per cent reported by this study because its sample group only comprised children aged 5 to 18—daily newspapers, as everyone knows, routinely report incidents of children as young as two to five also being raped and/or abused in the country.

For those who think only Indian girls are unsafe, here’s another shocker: Boys, says the study, are more at risk for sexual abuse than girls. Out of the 12,447 child respondents who reported having faced one or more forms of sexual abuse that included severe and other forms, 52.94 per cent were boys and 47.06 per cent were girls.

Along with the revelations of this study in recent days have come the contrarian voices of adult policy-makers in several Indian states who want to ban the introduction of sex education in the middle school syllabus by the CBSE Board in the current school year. Their argument is that sex education is not in keeping with the Indian ethos and will corrupt the minds of impressionable children.

However, the only key to controlling the prevalence of and eventually getting rid of child sexual abuse is empowering children with knowledge about their own bodies and what constitutes appropriate and inappropriate behaviour and contact with the adults and caregivers they interact with.

Harleen Kohli of the CEVA (Centre for Education and Voluntary Action) in Chandigarh has conducted sex education workshops for facilitators as well as children. “As a nation we are so reluctant to talk about life’s essentials like relationships and reproductive health with our children,” she says, adding, “ I see the faces of teachers of biology freeze over when they have to talk about reproduction…they skirt the subject and gloss over the details. Imagine, if ‘flour’ and ‘sugar’ were dirty words, would we be able to teach people how to cook?”

The most alarming aspect about child sexual abuse, indicates the study, is that the perpetrators of abuse are most often adults entrusted with the care of children—uncles, neighbours, teachers, older children, employers and sometimes parents as well. Strangers are involved only in a small percentage of cases. But “a girl whose mother has not spoken to her even about a basic issue like menstruation, is unable to tell her mother about the uncle or neighbour who has made sexual advances to her,” says the study report. This silence encourages abusers, emboldens them to continue the abuse and to press their advantage to subject the child to more severe forms of sexual abuse. Very often, children do not even realise they are being abused. They just bury the incident as a painful and shameful one, not to be ever told to anyone.

Vinod Kumar is a paan-beedi seller who lives in Chandigarh. In March this year, his 11-year old daughter disappeared, apparently abducted by Vinod’s 26-year old nephew who was also staying with the family. The father is distraught and defensive. “All five of my children used to spend time with my nephew who played with them. We never suspected him of doing any gandi harkat with my daughters. It is obvious now though that he had another agenda.”

Vinod has a clear case of abduction and has reported the matter to the police. But very often, even well-meaning families and adults who want to protect children do not know how to deal with other, more insidious forms of sexual abuse.

Some of the board members of a trust that runs an orphanage in Haryana have been concerned with the activities of one of their colleagues, who is known as a respected member of the community, towards the orphanage girls whose rooms he has been seen visiting at late hours of the evening. He has also been observed, say these members, in inappropriate physical contact with specific female children for whom he buys gifts.

How do they protect the children, they ask? They have no concrete evidence against the man to either confront him or go to the police, they cannot elicit complaints against the man from the orphanage girls who according to one of the lady members “enjoy his touching them” (possibly construed as affection by children), and they cannot vote him out because there is disagreement within the board about whether the 55-60- year-old man’s behaviour of touching, fondling, kissing and visiting the rooms of young teenage girls is inappropriate or not.

The government study defines child sexual abuse as ranging from ‘severe’ (sexual assault and fondling or having a child fondle an adult’s private parts) to ‘lesser’ forms (exposing a child to pornography). How can children be legally protected from sexual abuse?

According to Madhu P Singh, a Chandigarh high court lawyer and member of the Child Welfare Committee, there are no specific laws for child sexual abuse. Rape and sodomy can lead to criminal conviction under IPC Section 376. Anything less than rape amounts to ‘outraging the modesty’ and is covered under IPC Section 354. These laws are difficult enough to apply to adult women, and harder still for children—it is difficult to prove, for instance, that a child whose private parts were fondled by an adult is suffering from emotional trauma induced by that particular abuse perpetrated by the particular adult.

While Andhra Pradesh, by a state amendment, has made some offences cognisable, non-bailable and to be tried by a court of session (minimum punishment is imprisonment for seven years, and a fine), other states have not followed. What is also lacking is a central law on the subject. The Juvenile Justice Act was amended and rewritten in 2000, but it does not cover sexual abuse on children.

One initiative that has had limited success is the Childline helpline available in some cities. Madhu Singh says about four or five cases of sexual abuse are reported by children aged five to 16, or their well-wishers, every month. The Child Welfare Committee visits slums and creates awareness about the helpline. The reported cases are provided counselling and if necessary, institutionalised in shelters run by the Chandigarh administration. Recently, says Madhu, “We were able to help a 14 year-old middle class girl who called us because she was being sexually abused by her father.” She receives counselling, lives at the shelter, attends school, and “refuses to see her family any more.” Other children, once empowered by the counselling they receive, choose to return home. Singh confirmed that as many boys as girls come for counselling.

Typically, what are the repercussions of child sexual abuse? The humiliation of the experiences can have outcomes as severe as violence where victims themselves become perpetrators of sexual crimes when they grow up, mistrust of physical intimacy later on in life with a loving partner. There is a glaring absence of support systems for victims of sexual abuse in India, such as counsellors, legal activists, sex education or public campaigns for awareness. The medical training of Indian doctors usually overlooks the treatment of child sexual abuse victims and they often fail to recognise it in patients.

Study on Child Abuse: India 2007 should serve as a wake-up call to a nation that is living a lie—willingly blind to what it knows at its core to be true.

[ Source: Askios ]

India - Pre-abuse Grooming

2007-10-12T09:30:00.000+05:30

Seema Prakash
19.09.07

[Note: For the sake of easy reading all perpetrators have been referred to as males and victims are referred to as children. Please note that perpetrators can be both genders and not all victims are children.]

On the 17th September 2007, the HT published an article ‘The Government has accepted a parliamentary panel’s suggestion that pre-offence “grooming” over the Net should be made a criminal offence’. While it is laudable that the government has decided to deliberate such a step, it is important for the public to know what ‘grooming’ is and why it needs to be seen as a criminal offense.

It is a fact that the Internet has provided a new and dangerous medium for committing sex offenses to which children and adolescents are especially vulnerable. While the perpetrator of sexual offenses on the net is often thought of as a deviant, perverted, loner and often a pedophile, it is important to remember that this is a misperception. Sex offenders and perpetrators of child sexual abuse live among us. They are relatives, neighbors, co-workers and they all have families. They are not anti social and deviant in all aspects, and may even have positive qualities and attributes. They are our brothers, sisters, parents and children. It is very difficult for us to reconcile to the fact that people we know respect and love may be molesters and abusers.

The very fact that they live amongst us makes it important for us to learn how to protect ourselves and our children. The first step in doing so is for us to accept that child sexual abuse depends on secrecy and that children most often don’t tell about the abuse when it begins. This is due to a process called ‘grooming’. Parents must learn about the powerful impact of grooming to dispel the illusion that their child will confide in them when abuse begins.

Grooming is the offenders painstakingly laid plan and it has a two fold purpose. The first is focused on the victim and on overcoming likely resistance. The second is to make sure others are unaware of what he is doing. Therefore grooming is accompanied by isolating the victim from others, especially those who may discover the abuse or those who the child is likely to turn for help or confide in such as mother, siblings or close friends. e.g. A suggestion to chat over the net in secret, when no one else is around, because others would not understand their ‘special relationship’, is a simple and effective way of isolating.

Once isolated and having agreed to keep this initial secret, grooming can begin in earnest. The perpetrator begins with small talk, jokes, pays compliments, confides -in other words engages in positive emotional interaction from which the victim derives pleasure and therefore is likely to prolong the secret.

This far, if the child shows no discomfort, embarrassment or resistance the offender will begin to introduce sexual content into the conversation in a manner and tone that conveys that is it perfectly normal to talk about this without feeling alarmed. He will deliberately put the child at ease and gauge the level to which the child is comfortable.

Whenever the child seems uncomfortable, or resists, the perpetrator will retreat so that the anxiety is reduced and the child feels ‘safe’ and a pleasurable reward is usually offered at this point. During subsequent efforts the child is likely to be less uncomfortable, can be reminded that nothing bad happened last time and that a reward awaits for “a little more cooperation.". One should never underestimate the degree of sophistication that child molesters will use to entice children and the powerful effect of this “reach and retreat” method.

If the abuse is in person and physical then grooming will begin with small, non sexual touches and can end in sexual interaction. If virtual, it usually begins with a conversation, proceeds to introduction of sexually explicit content and further to graphic photographs/images and then finally to possible real life encounters. If the abuser is a pedophile then this information will probably be shared with other pedophiles thus increasing the likelihood of repeated abuse.

[Source: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/askios/message/820 ]

30 Days in September: A play about love and betrayal

2007-10-01T12:00:00.000+05:30

Luit Neil Don
28 September 2007, Friday

Mahesh Dattani's play, about love and betrayal, directed by the gutsy and dynamic Sattyakee D’com Bhuyan, endeavours to lift the veil of silence, which surrounds child sexual abuse and addresses the issue unflinchingly.

Here are a few excerpts from the article:

D’RAMA THE PASSION Players and Surjya, presented Mahesh Dattani’s “30 Days in September,” a play in three acts, at Rabindra Bhavan in Guwahati, Assam, from September 21. It was performed for three nights. It treats the sensitive, and generally taboo issue of child sexual abuse, and most importantly, the wrapped up subject of Incest. The play about love and betrayal, directed by the gutsy and dynamic Sattyakee D’com Bhuyan, endeavours to lift the veil of silence, which surrounds child sexual abuse and addresses the issue unflinchingly. It builds on the trauma of Mala Khound, who lives with the haunting memories of her abused past. Her abuser - her uncle - subconsciously lives with her all the time, as a part of her dirty reflections. He damages her natural growth, deters her from pursuing her love interests beyond the ominous 30-day period, scars her soul, which finally transformed her into a woman who enjoys being taken advantage of. By marking a daring departure from the norm, the play ensures that we, as a society, no longer take comfort in the routine of uttering the word ‘incest’ in gutless undertones. The play also brings us closer to the reality of abused children - pleasure does form a part of their pain. The consequence of dangerous games can only be dangerous.

As the play progresses, Mala withers under the psychological pressure extorted on her by the abuser. Her mother watches silently, living her own pain and suffering mutely. Exploring the painful problem, Dattani raises valid concerns, and structures a world of optimism, where the wrongs can stand corrected and resurrection of a brutalised faith is possible. But none of this happens without another man’s willingness to help the two women, bury their traumatic past, and find ways of rejuvenating their present. Vikram, Mala’s boyfriend, becomes the agent of change here. He dares to unmask the evil, even at the cost of his love.

He hits the women hard, until they hit rock bottom. Finally, there is no way out but to come up, face the wrongs and dare to correct them, notwithstanding the challenges the process of correction entails. Both Mala and her mother cut his questions short at first, but finally he succeeds in urging Mala to openly accuse her uncle. This leads to Manu’s horrifying revelation of the reason for her silence, and for her taking refuge behind her prayers - the violation of her body as a child by her own brother. Mala now begins to comprehend the true nature of her mother’s agony and suffering.

To say that “30 Days In September” is a very powerful play, and that it derives most of its power from the written word, would not do justice to director Sattyakee D’com Bhuyan, who gave a sensitive, strong voice to Dattani’s words. He shaped some exceedingly charged and some very heartrending moments on stage. The most enduring image of course, is the last scene, when Mala is seen on the ramp upfront and the Uncle on the empty frame, taking away with it the last barrier that stood between the mother and daughter, followed by the mother-daughter union in the living room.

Another powerful scene is when Mala is relating her story of abuse to Deepak. This scene is juxtaposed with her uncle behind the frame, enacting the horrific episode. This juxtaposition of the past with the present makes this a highly charged scene.

His use of space has always been on an offbeat design. For director Sattyakee D’com Bhuyan, this production marks another milestone in almost a decade of promoting English theatre in the region. His amateur backyard theatre group, D’RAMA the Passion Players, is a pioneer in popularising English language plays in the Northeast region, and has been instrumental in their gaining the acceptance of theatre lovers. This genre of blending Assamese with English was yet another huge success.

For the full article, click here .

(Thanks to Askios for the link to the article)

Law ministry rejects bill for child protection

2007-09-04T17:58:00.001+05:30

Chetan Chauhan, Hindustan Times
New Delhi, September 04, 2007

In a major setback to the Women and Child Development (WCD) Ministry, the Law Ministry has rejected the Offences Against Children Bill, saying the bill is just a repetition of provisions in other laws. The Law Ministry has told WCD that most provisions for child protection already exist in different laws and therefore, there is no need for a separate enactment of legislation.

The legal affairs department of the ministry said offences of sexual or physical abuse against children are covered under different sections of the Indian Penal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. The ministry also said the Evidence Act also covers child protection in a comprehensive manner.

Following criticism from the Supreme Court on the Domestic Violence Act, the Law Ministry was doubly cautious this time. The apex court had termed the Act a poorly drafted legislation. In the wake of the court’s observations, the law ministry said the child offences law would only duplicate the work for law enforcement agencies.

The WCD ministry has touted the Offences Against Children bill as a major weapon to prevent incidents like Nithari and said that it would be introduced in Parliament in the monsoon session. After receiving a drubbing from the Law Ministry, the WCD ministry officials, said they were examining the draft bill in a bid to convince the Law Ministry about its utility.

The WCD ministry had covered all types of offences against child including corporal punishment, emotional abuse by parents or teachers and different types of sexual abuse. Stringent punishment for offences against child was prescribed. The ministry had also said that the bill would bring India at par with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

[ Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/storypage/storypage.aspx?id=2cef17ef-f024-474c-9051-112c525be97b&&Headline=Ministry+rejects+bill+for+child+protection ]

Teaching children smart ways to stay safe

2007-09-04T17:28:00.000+05:30

Staff Reporter

CHENNAI: Does your child know the ‘touching rules?’ Learning to differentiate between a good touch and a bad touch could be a crucial in children’s safety. ‘Tickles and hugs – Learning the touching rules’ is aimed at just that – teaching children smart ways to keep themselves safe.

An initiative of Tulir – Centre for the Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse, ‘Tickles and hugs …’ is an audio book on personal safety for children, which was launched at Landmark here on Wednesday. The audio book is a production of Karadi Tales and the project has been supported by ActionAid India.

Joint Secretary to the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development Loveleen Kacker, who launched it, said that a study conducted earlier this year brought out the instances of physical, sexual and emotional abuses children encountered.

The National-level study, commissioned by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, revealed that over 53 percent of the children in a sample size of about 14,000, had been sexually abused. “Abuse is highest among children in the age group of 5 to 12 years.” It was shocking that those children who are usually accompanied by adults are among the most abused lot, she said. She urged parents to seek help from lawyers, the police, counsellors and non-governmental organisations.

Actor Revathy, who has narrated the story in the audio book, said it was important to listen to what a child has to say. “They do not lie, unless we teach them to, and talking to children is easier than speaking to adults,” she said.

The human body knew when someone’s touch is not right, and only if one is willing to listen will a child report an incident of abuse, she said.

Sensitive issue

Shobha Viswanath of Karadi Tales said great care was taken while scripting the story as the issue was sensitive. The book has stories revolving around episodes of abuse and how a child needs to report them to a trustworthy adult.

Vidya Reddy of Tulir said the Tamil version of the audio book, ‘Kattipidi kichu kichu mootu – Thodudal vidhiyai therinjukalama?’, was launched at the Corporation Primary School in Koyambedu earlier on Wednesday. Students were very receptive to the content dealt with in the audio book, which was enacted by students of Women’s Christian College.

[ Source: http://www.hindu.com/2007/08/30/stories/2007083058980200.htm ]

Education is oversexed

2007-09-04T14:40:00.000+05:30

27 Aug 2007, 0023 hrs IST, Pinki Virani

Several children, without parental permission, are ordered to strip and are groped in a Delhi school health camp — by doctors who don’t wear gloves. This is child sexual abuse but there is no law to book these doctors. To protect boys there is only Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which specifies sodomy.

This episode only underscores the existence of organisations which have no expertise in child education, but decide on what our children need to be taught in the form of sex education. Sex education is presented as cheap pornography in teaching material. How can one expect it to be better, when a motley combination of government and non-government organisations is in charge? It is not their area of expertise. Besides, they are not intrinsically invested in our children.

The state is schizophrenic in its attitudes to sex. A minister dis-allows sanitary napkin advertisements on television, yet the Censor Board allows the naming of a minor “sexy”. This cancer-ridden child, wearing spaghetti-strap tops, exchanges precocious adult banter with an old male cook. The subtext: it is okay for “harmless” old men to call girl-children sexy, talk in age-inappropriate language if they are dying.

Flush with foreign funds, a group conducts a school HIV-awareness workshop. The facilitators are young, they connect with the teens. But they are not qualified counsellors. They end up giving the impression that sex is just that — cool. In another workshop, with emphasis on experimental sex, the message is straightforward: whoever you do it with, girl or guy, just use a condom. Sadly, children are left with gaps. They are not told that continual anal sex can lead to sphincter and bowel problems.

Or, that oral sex can also transmit HIV if an infection of one partner meets the other’s blood through a gum-bleed or cut in the mouth.

We are seeing the hyper-sexualisation of sex education. Our children are urged to think of sex as an out-of-body experience, in isolation of their physical, mental, spiritual lives — it is all about sexual rights, with a condom to delete HIV and pregnancy.

No wonder parents are petrified about sex education in schools. But with no sex education at home either, where does it leave our children? Around half our nation is currently under 20 years. On the one hand, we have the Internet with its paedophiles, the fashion world’s bisexual brigade and item girls saying that sexuality can be bartered for a career. On the other hand, we have faiths which frown on sex except for childbearing and families which forbid gender interaction.

Positive parenting and sound schooling can avoid these extreme situations. Proper parenting starts young with the use of biological words at home to explain good touch and bad touch to children. Parents should be clued into the child’s inner life. One should answer questions and address their gender issues at the appropriate age. One should stay connected with children through their academic lives. If home has 50 per cent of the sexual predators, the world opening to the child has the rest. The latter, as increasing reports indicate, includes schools.

A child’s protection and sex education is possible with strong parent-teacher associations (PTA). Some schools fostering strong partnerships in their PTA are working together to draw up an acceptable sex education syllabus.

Sex education is grouped under age-appropriate classes and adapted to cultural requirements. In fact, it is not called sex education but gender studies imparting life skills and moral science. Any title which broadens the scope of the subject to put it in the right perspective, instills respect for the human body and approaches sex with sensitivity is fine.

This syllabus is taught by qualified teachers, with child psychology being a part of their BEd curriculum. In evolved PTAs, teachers could hold an additional degree in counselling to double up as alternatives to the pathetic in-school counsellors. Our children could turn out fine in such a set-up.

The writer works on issues of child sexual abuse.

[Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Editorial/Education_is_oversexed/articleshow/2312633.cms

Thanks to Askios for the link to the article. ]

End of repetitive trauma for victims of child abuse

2007-08-18T06:37:00.000+05:30

It seems that the government has finally realized the need for setting up special interrogation chambers for victims of child sexual abuse, and sparing them the trauma of repeatedly giving an account of what happened to them, and facing cross-examination by the defense lawyer.

The whole article can be read here

The contents of the article are as follows:

Victims of child abuse need not undergo the trauma of repeated appearance in court in future, as the government is contemplating enforcing a comprehensive guideline for dealing with cases.

The draft guidelines prepared by a committee set up by the Women and Child Development Ministry also proposes that victims can only be examined in the presence of a known person.

"We hope that the guidelines provide a clear picture to states on how to deal with such cases. The guidelines are prepared in such a way that it addresses the sensitivity of the victim," Union Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Chaudhury said.

The minister said there exist "ambiguities" in dealing with child abuse victims and hoped that the new guidelines would act as an yardstick for states.

"Among other things, the guidelines proposes that the victim should be called to the court only once for recording her statement and that should be an in-camera process," she said.

These victims sometimes have to go to court more than 50 times and they are "forced to relive the trauma all the time ... We thought of ending it and came out with these draft guidelines", Chaudhury said.

Separate instructions will also be issued to schools to deal with such cases and the precaution to be taken to avoid such incidents, she added.

The ministry's decision to frame guidelines for dealing with child abuse comes in the wake of a case of a teacher allegedly sodomising a student for over an year in the capital.

School staff abuse child for 3 months

2007-07-27T16:29:00.000+05:30

Nandini R Iyer, Hindustan Times
New Delhi, July 25, 2007

A high-level committee has been set up by Minister for Women and Child Development (WCD) Renuka Chowdhury to inquire into the alleged brutal sexual abuse of a 10-year-old boy in the Capital. The minister’s decision to set up the probe panel is unprecedented — usually it is state governments that deal with such cases. The panel will meet on Wednesday.

Chowdhury told the Hindustan Times: “The 10-year-old child was studying in a school in north-west Delhi. He was sodomised daily for three months last year by three school staffers — a manager, a teacher and another employee.”

The minister, who met the child’s parents on Monday, was clearly upset. “The parents came to me terrified and disheartened. I was in tears. This is one of the most horrifying cases that has ever come to my notice,” she said.

“The parents discovered it by accident because the child was becoming physically and mentally ill. When they took him to hospital, they learnt he was being sodomised,” Chowdhury said.

The minister said the child subsequently identified the three men who had abused him. The Delhi Police registered a first information report (FIR) and arrested two of the accused. The third is absconding. Both the arrested men are, however, believed to have resumed their jobs at the school.

“In the meantime, the parents are being threatened repeatedly,” Chowdhury said. “When a child so young is the victim of sexual abuse, the system cannot be so helpless as to not react. The child will have to relive the horror every time the matter is investigated,” she said.

Hard to Believe

2007-07-03T01:59:00.000+05:30

Well, turns out that I wasn't all that wrong...
In an interview, Goa government governor of tourism opposed child sexual abuse on one hand, while simultaneously justifying the actions of foreigners there by saying that stripping and touching children is ok. The complete article can be found here:

One doesn't know whether to laugh with incredulity, or cry with despair at such people. The very idea that a person who holds so much responsibility and could bring about a lot of good were he to put his heart to it, spouts garbage like this is evident of the ignorance about the issue that is present everywhere in India

Finally

2007-06-23T23:20:00.000+05:30

The Government of India seems to finally be taking some action as regards the survey recently published by them about Child Sexual Abuse in India. There are plans to set up a special court in Maharashtra to speedily handle cases involving crimes committed against children (as opposed to juvenile courts which handle crimes committed by children)
A court of this kind has already been set up recently in Goa, which is hardly a surprize given the reputation it has as a nexus for paedophiles world-wide...

Maharashtra to get nation’s 1st child rights body

2007-06-23T17:05:00.000+05:30

Surendra Gangan

Monday, June 04, 2007 08:12 IST

Commission likely to be operational in a few weeks

MUMBAI: The Maharashtra government has put the final touches on a plan to create a Child Rights Commission — the first of its kind in the country — amid a disquieting increase in incidents of child abuse in the state. The proposal is expected to be approved by the state cabinet in the coming days, and the Commission is likely to begin functioning in a few weeks.

A study conducted by the Centre and United Nations Children’s Fund early this year had established the growing rate of child abuse in the state.

The study revealed that the 53 per cent of the country’s children are sexually assaulted, and Maharashtra’s figures were consistent with the national percentage of 50.57. The figures were viewed with serious concern by the state government.

“All formalities have been completed,” said Harshvardhan Patil, minister for women and child development.

Maharashtra was also the first state to establish a Women’s Commission in the early 1990s. An official from the Women and Child Welfare Department said the current proposal met an urgent requirement. “The amendment to the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, and the introduction of Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, were both related to children,” the official said.

The formation of a Child Rights Commission was the need of the hour," the official said.

State officials contend that they have registered commendable success in controlling child labour in hazardous industries such as those associated with zari and leather. "We rescued nearly 2,400 children, after which employers voluntarily released some 23,000 children from hazardous industries," the official said. "That represents the release of up to 75 per cent children working in hazardous industries."

Vijay Satbir Singh, secretary, Women and Child Development Department, said the new commission will focus on critical children-related issues. “It will deal with health problems, child labour, child beggars, orphans, and domestic violence faced by children." Singh said the commission will help the government start day-care centres and effect better co-ordination with agencies working for child welfare.

Farida Lambe, a trustee of Pratham, an organisation that works to promote primary education, welcomed the creation of the commission but said that its administration should be in the right hands. That feeling was echoed by other activists. Lambe said malnutrition, sexual abuse, and right to education should be the priority areas of the commission.

[Source: http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1101010 ]

It Isn't Child's Play

2007-06-19T18:31:00.000+05:30

Here's an article which was published in DNA on Sunday,17th June,2007. The ariticle is titled "It isn't child's play". It's a blazing report on how Mahabalipuram orphanages are hotbeds of paedophilia. They arrange special rooms within the orphanage for foreigners willing to make donations. Go to the following link to read more. You have to register before you can access the article on page 8 of the issue. Please take the trouble, it's worth it.

http://digital.dnaindia.com/epapermain.aspx?queryed=20&eddate=6/17/2007

Family shuns man

2007-06-03T00:46:00.000+05:30

'He should be shot dead'

The family of Sanjay Patil, who is charged with sodomising minor girls, including his own children, is in a state of shock.... The suspect's wife, Saroj Patil, 42, says her husband "should be shot at sight"...... "I did not ever have an inkling of my husband's activities... We will commit suicide...."

Her two children, aged 9 and 5, are in a playful mood, oblivious of the gravity of the accusations hurled against their father.

...."He was pleading for one chance. But if a man can do such a thing to his own children, he has no right to live. He deserves the harshest punishment," his wife says

This article appeared in the 2nd June issue of DNA. While the wife's reaction is well-called for, one can't help but wonder if she would have reacted nearly as strongly if her husband had not abused their own children, and had merely preyed on other children...

Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse

2007-05-28T23:18:00.000+05:30

How can we, as a part of society, do to make sure that we do not inadvertently allow the horror of child sexual abuse to live on undeterred?

Following are some guidelines, as put forward by TULIR:

Role of the Community

Know. Learning more about child rights and child sexual abuse can help you ensure the safety of children in your family, your neighborhood and your community
Talk. Talk to your colleagues, friends, relatives and family about the problem. Help break the silence around child sexual abuse.
Observe. Be alert to the behavioral and physical indicators of sexual abuse in children. Don't just hear children's voices, Listen to them.
Help. If you suspect a child of being abused, assist the child. Seek assistance from Tulir-CPHCSA.
Advocate. Ask your child's school to incorporate personal safety curriculum and to implement a school child protection policy.
Contact. Tulir-CPHCSA can organize talks/workshops for your school, organization or community.
Involve. Volunteer your time and resources to organizations working against child sexual abuse.

And the first step towards helping curb this evil, is acceptance. As long as people believe that this is something that happens only to lower castes, or in the western countries, nothing can be done, as this is a phantom that hides in the shroud of lies created by the taboo attached to sex itself, along with the respect and reputation of the family that hangs in the balance.

Abuse victims often become abusers

2007-05-26T16:22:00.000+05:30

[This article was originally published on page 6 of Pretoria News on May 17, 2007]

NOTE: The title of the article was misleading. Most abuse victims do NOT become abusers. However, the content of the article has useful information on the effects of child abuse.

A United State psychiatrist has compared child abuse to oppression, saying that when people are abused, they can turn into abusers.

Using South Africa as an example, Dr Bessel van der Kolk, said those who are oppressed could become oppressors.

Van der Kolk was speaking about the effects of childhood trauma on the general functioning of children during the eighth annual conference of the South African Professional Society on the Abuse of Children underway in Pretoria.

Most cases of alcohol and drug abuse, depression and suicide attempts can be prevented if a child is kept safe from abuse.

Van der Kolk said people who were not subjected to abuse as children were less likely to suffer major emotional problems later on in life.

"When we resolve a childhood trauma, we often resolve the depression," Van der Kolk said.

According to him trauma has a lot to do with the victim's sense of being alone.

Traumatised children hate weakness, especially in themselves, he said, and often traumatised youngsters would behave violently towards other children. People hurt other people because they themselves were hurt, Van der Kolk said.

He also emphasised the importance of social support. If a child felt safe, he or she could start talking about, and dealing with, his or her trauma.

In cases where a mother tried to defend the child before he or she was abused - by, for example, going to the police - the victim would usually do "okay".

"But what we are seeing more and more often in townships are a lot of desperate and frightened women depending on an abusive boyfriend to support her and her child. She is too scared to take action against this boyfriend.

"This child is not protected before or after abuse. Such a child does very badly," Van der Kolk said.

A child who received the necessary support after a trauma would not continue reliving the fears associated with their experience.

Their ability to imagine how things can be different and better is very important in the healing process, Van der Kolk said.

"However, one must first acknowledge the child's reactions to the trauma and explain that his experience of fear makes sense," he said.

He added that physically abused children were usually less psychologically "damaged" than sexually abused children.

This was because sexual abuse created confusion, especially about love, pain, pleasure and guilt.

"A traumatised child feels defenceless. We have to make the kid feel good before we can plunge into the darkness of his or her trauma," he said.

- Hanti Otto

Harmonious homes no guarantee

2007-05-24T01:15:00.000+05:30

DAILY EXPRESS NEWS

Social ills: Harmonious families no guarantee
13 May, 2007

Kota Kinabalu: A harmonious family does not guarantee that its members are not involved in social ills, a social scientist said here Saturday.

Prof. Dr Abd Hadi Zakaria. from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Universiti Malaya, said based on his research conducted in Johor in 1999, youths from harmonious families also indulged in anti-social activities like incest, drug abuse, alcohol consumption and pornography.

"Almost all the incest cases that we studied occurred in harmonious families where family members were close and cordial," he said.

He said the family members involved conducted their "in-house" activities together like watching pornographic films, while in the case of incest it was usually consensual.

Prof. Abd Hadi had earlier presented a paper entitled "Research on Adolescents and Youths" at a seminar and workshop on current social issues research, jointly organised by the Social Institute of Malaysia under the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry, and Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS).

He said the research in Johor was sponsored by the Johor Family Foundation and was conducted via questionnaires involving 1,300 respondents.

The target group was youths under 18, including students, and from various family backgrounds.

"If anti-social behaviour exists in harmonious families, what more in broken or turbulent families where the young members could also be involved in illegal racing, gangsterism and vandalism as had been found in many previous studies," said Abd Hadi.

"This means we have to rethink about our common views or assumptions that harmonious families produce good, responsible youths while broken families produce otherwise.

"So where we are now? What do we do? We need to study. We have to look for new approaches guided by other principles which will enable us to curb such unhealthy activities," he said, adding some social scientists also concurred with his new finding. - Bernama

[Source: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/askios-activists ]

The scenario in India would surely be no different. Yeah. The big question. What do we do? We detest anti-socials, but many of them didn't really choose, in their right minds, to become what they became. They were victims themselves, and though it is not right to "justify" their conduct, we can try to imagine what horrendous effects sexual abuse can have on the psyche of a weak and impressionable kid. If we want children to grow up to become productive members of the society, actions have to be taken. The law-makers of our country have to realize that "curbing such unhealthy activities" in our "harmonious families"would require a transparent legal system, wherein a wronged child seeking justice gets it without all the hassles. Stringent and effective laws will act as a deterrant for further perpetration. I have already emphasized that one of the reasons sexual abuse of a child happens, especially at home within close family circles, is that the perpetrator knows very well he can get away with it. If strong action is taken against the accused in each and every case that is reported, the potential perpetrators will start thinking twice before royally fiesting on a child's body. The tag of crime will be associated with the act, and the perpetrators, most of whom don't even realize that it's a crime, will feel the guilt of doing something wrong and hesitate.

Writing is so easy I know. I know what a heinous task it is to convince the goverment to start thinking about it. The recent National Study on Child Abuse has thankfully caused some stir. At this point of time, effective lobbying by influential NGOs and social activists, authors, journalists and individuals like us should produce some effect. Let's go about doing our jobs. I, for one, will do mine.

CSA Workshop in Mumbai this June

2007-05-21T00:20:00.000+05:30

80 % OF CHILDREN ARE ABUSED BY PEOPLE THEY KNOW!

Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) is alarming, abhorrent and very often an unimaginable issue. But the reality of the situation is that it exists. Sadly victims exist in silence, and this is due to a host of factors, the most prominent one being the discomfort the topic generates if acknowledged.

It is upto us to take steps. Proactively responding in a timely and appropriate way, accepting that the problem exists, and then addressing it with caring and foresight will ensure that children truly keep their right be safe all the time.

We'd like to introduce The Workshop on Awareness and Responding to Child Sexual Abuse (CSA). It will impart a basic understanding of CSA by discussing the various aspects of the issue and their effects on children, families and society as a whole.

The detailed program held over ONE & HALF DAYS, has been conceived by TULIR, a Chennai-based NGO. It will lay a foundation of knowledge that participants can build on for further work on the subject of Child Protection, either in terms of policy, advocacy, or programming.

It will also provide information that will help participants (especially Counsellors, Therapists, Teachers) learn/enhance their skills to effectively, appropriately and professionally respond to cases of CSA.

What you can expect to achieve from this workshop:
An increased awareness of child sexual abuse - its dynamics, effects, strategies for prevention, and responses. Most importantly, an understanding that child sexual abuse is not only a problem for the victim, but is also a problem for the entire community.

Scope and Sequence of the Workshop

GOALS:
Ø Raising awareness and sensitivity to CSA
Ø Capacity building to respond effectively to CSA
Ø Introduction to Prevention of CSA through Personal Safety
Education

MAJOR ISSUES/TOPICS COVERED:
Ø What is child sexual abuse
Ø Acts constituting child sexual abuse
Ø Characteristics of child sexual abuse
Ø Research statistics on child sexual abuse
Ø Preconditions to child sexual abuse
Ø Common effects and signs and symptoms of child sexual abuse
Ø Disclosure and responding to child sexual abuse
Ø Reporting and support system
Ø Prevention of CSA through Personal Safety Education

About the trainer
TULIR, Centre for the Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse is a Chennai-based NGO, (www.tulircphcsa.org) committed to working against Child Sexual Abuse since 2004. The workshop will be facilitated by Vipin Thekkekalthil.

Vipin has a Masters in Social Work and has been actively involved in the development and programming of Tulir from its inception.

The Fees
A nominal fee of Rs 250/- per person, to cover costs on venue. The schedule and venue (possibly the second weekend of June/ Mumbai) will be decided once we have a reasonably-sized audience, and a confirmed number of participants. Fees can be paid after the schedule is fixed.

If you have any queries, please email Deepika (deepikadani@...), or Joan (huanita@...) Or call Joan on 9820375319.

If interested, do let us know as soon as possible. Also, please forward this mail to friends, colleagues, and any one whomay benefit from it.

Keep the faith,
Alifya, Deepika, Joan

Every moment is a second chance.

(Source : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/askios-activists/ )

Our Endangered Species

2007-05-20T20:34:00.000+05:30

By Andrew Vachss

Originally published in PARADE, March 29, 1998

Years ago, I was in the middle of a hotly contested trial, representing an infant who had been so tortured that the testifying pediatric expert said the baby actually appeared "suicidal" even at such a young age. One of the opposing attorneys argued for the return of the child, saying his client was the "natural mother" and had certain rights. There was nothing "natural" about the "mothering" this baby boy had received. He would have been better off in a P.O.W. camp. And I began to reflect on how even biology has failed some children, how our human species no longer practiced the lessons of our predecessors. I wondered, even then, if it was too late for us. I do not believe it is—but I do believe we are running out of time.

Although we all believe our human species to be the highest point on the evolutionary scale, there is one critical area in which we have failed to evolve, one area in which we do not represent an improvement upon our predecessors. And this is a failure so fundamental, so critical, that our long-term survival is at stake. Ultimately, it poses a greater threat than war, poverty, hunger, crime, racism and tribalism—even of the genocidal variety—combined.

That fundamental failure is this: We are not protecting and preserving our own. Our notion of the human "family" as the safeguard of our species has not evolved. Instead, it has gone in the opposite direction—it has devolved.

It has devolved to the extent that we tolerate unprotective, even violently abusive parents. It has devolved to the extent that we tolerate predators within a child's circle of trust—in schools, in clubs, within religious organizations. It has devolved to extent that abusers, even when they have been identified, are permitted further opportunities to prey. It has devolved to the extent that we insist on the "rehabilitative potential" of those who viciously injure and/or sexually assault their own children. And it has devolved to the extent that we permit convicted predators of children to be released and walk among us.

One distinguishing characteristic of highly evolved species is a long period of postnatal helplessness, when offspring are not able to fend for themselves. Another characteristic is pack behavior, a collectiveness which requires that all activity be geared to the ultimate survival of the group.

Among other mammals, nonprotective parents are considered defective by other pack members. Not only will they decrease the pack's numbers through direct attacks on their own young, but they also cannot be relied upon to guard the offspring of others while pack members forage, hunt or gather. And so they are expelled. Likewise, predators within a species are not tolerated. They are banished, avoided or killed. These are not moral judgements; they are biologically driven and, among all species but our own, compelling.

Human animals, by contrast, have tolerated—even tacitly condoned—the nonprotector and the predator, leading to an escalation of the rape, murder and torture of our children. Rather than making their survival, and the survival of our species, an unquestioned priority, we watch indifferently while the evolution of cruelty continues. Much of it comes from the individual family itself; all of it from the human family as a whole.

Instead of blaming the "destruction of the family" for every social ill and evil, we need to face the fact that this is a self-inflicted wound. The "family" is self-destructing—destroying itself from within by its failure to nurture and value its offspring. What are "family values" anyway? Unless and until the ultimate "family value" is protection of our children, such a term deserves no respect.

We cannot continue to tolerate those who prey upon our children—the future of our species. Evolution is a race, a relay race, with the baton passed from generation to generation. The competition is between those who value children as the seedlings of our species and those who value them as vassals and victims.

We are not winning this race. And we cannot, unless and until we change our priorities and our conduct. All the pious rhetoric on the planet will not save one child. And while we endlessly debate the "right" of pedophiles to post kiddie porn on the Internet, our species moves farther away from its biological roots.

We must take the abuse of a child as an offense against (and threat to) our survival. And we must replicate the conduct of our animal ancestors and respond as they did—or fail to do so and vanish as some of them did. Forever.

Why It Takes A Whole Village To Rape A Child

A classic illustration of devolution is our laws against incest. What is the difference between sex with a child of another and a child of one's own? We all know—and the data prove—the truth. When a male (note: I do not say a "man") has sex with a neighbor's child, prison is a likely possibility. But should such a creature have sex with his own child, we euphemistically deem it "family dysfunction" and call in the therapists.

Incest laws were enacted to prevent the birth of biogenetic defectives. But why do such laws apply to children? Children do not have the biological capacity to reproduce. Laws prohibiting sex or marriage between closely related adults protect the species. But incest prohibition as to children has no such value.

Simply put, we as a nation consider children to be the property of their parents. And we provide a special immunity to sex offenders who grow their own victims. Which is more destructive to our species: the random sexual assault of a child or the sexual assault of a child by the very individual whom all laws command to protect that child? What is the moral, social or ethical justification from distinguishing sexual assault by blood relationship of the victim to the perpetrator? We can come to but one conclusion: The laws against incest exist not to protect children but to protect predators.

Yes, our human race remains the only one that tolerates nonprotective parents and same-species predators. The incest laws make that point, written in the blood of innocents. This is the question about incest laws for every legislator in the land: Explain it or change it. And unless we, as a society, start asking that question, we will continue our "evolution" until we have lost our humanity.

Why Indeed!

2007-05-08T00:55:00.000+05:30

It is a very pronounced human feature to make everything ordinary sound extraordinary and add those hyperboles. It is a good thing sometimes, as we might have something that needs special attention; something which gives us a common cause. But we should be cautious and think once to make sure that we are not blindly giving in to this newly found, ancient but acquired instinct.

So many things start with a ‘Why?’ And why are we here? Why is it that CSA needs special attention? I surely hope it isn’t because of the same reason that sex is given so much of importance, for then we would be no better than the perpetrators who are obsessed with it. It would amount to nothing more than indulgence. Why is discussing about child sexual abuse a different thing from discussing about sexual abuse in general?

There are at least two reasons for it being an issue that needs special attention. One reason is the fact that there is a difference when an adult faces, and when a child faces the abuse. It is common knowledge, how difficult it is even for adults to talk about sexual abuse, imagine the state of a young kid who thinks it is partially his/her fault that the abuse even happened. Since the victim has been dependent on his/her parents for most of the significant decisions of his/her life, it finally comes down to how they want to deal with the problem. Most of them would just want to refrain from taking a real decision; they just prefer to brush the dust under the doormat. And much worse are the cases where they themselves are the ones who have committed the act. In both the cases, the child has nowhere to go, and such incidents can have a life long impact on the development of the child’s conscience. The child goes through the insecurity of having no one to protect him/her. His/Her own parents betrayed their trust. So you can imagine the effect of that on their moral development.

The other fact that distinguishes CSA from sexual abuse is that, there hasn’t been much of an attempt on the part of the ‘responsible’ to do so. There has been a general tendency to shy away from the subject, to keep it under wraps. From vote banks to the rigid alignment to being conservative, there are many reasons for it. In context of the Indian society, anything related to sex will always be given a special processing, and more so to something that is even more uncommon. It is true that child sexual abuse is not a part of everyday life. And though it does require special attention, too much of it is given in a negative way, resulting from the kind of thinking mentioned. The comfortable path of believing that there is no problem is always much more preferred, than discussing it with to find a solution. Also, most of the people have their own feelings which they are guilty about, which make them find it difficult to face the issue openly, even though they would certainly want to from the inside.

Now, coming back to the important question and the one most eagerly discussed is the one that enquires about the psychology of the ‘criminal’, it is established that it would amount to doing a crime. The common inclination is always to picture a male being the only candidate for it and it is justified to some extent because that is the usual case. But to be prejudiced that men are the only predators is like giving an escape route and reducing the blame on the female perpetrators (even though they might be few in numbers). Most people when talking about or writing about CSA give the perpetrator a male form. To a great extent, they hide the general concept, and the basic reason.

Apart from others there certainly are two kinds of such person. One of them would be the closest who can be to a savage beast, who thinks only of pleasure; the kind of person who has not a developed enough thinking to think beyond the preliminary ‘yes and no’ in terms of pleasure and pain. There is no reason for them to think of the pain the victim is going to receive, which is why they will never give a second thought before even taking the victim’s life. Then there would be a different kind of person, who will think of his/her intentions being justified (like in the case of pedophiles). To them these are natural urges and hence do not find anything wrong with them. When they find themselves head on with the society which condemns their natural desires, they start justifying the act by saying that the victim provoked them or the victim was 13 going on 30. They just played along with the victim. Some of them have gone to the extent of forming associations all over the world trying to legalize adult-child relationships. As atrocious as it sounds, these people are quite vocal about their desires.

Now, considering the two facets of the problem mentioned, there is a common need of there being a platform, not only in the physical sense but also mentally, where it is possible for people to discuss even this delicate problem in an open way, though again it has to be with purpose of achieving an end. And also considering the kind of person guilty, mentioned later, it becomes even more important for there being more free space for expression and discussion, because it is quite possible that once the things come out in the open, they will be more aware of their own conscience. CSA is a sly crime where the perpetrator always operates in the dark and if we are to treat him/her without some openness we would be pushing them into the dark forever. He might never come out and continue with his/her disposition.

Give them back their childhood

2007-04-23T12:33:00.000+05:30

- The Hindu Magazine, Apr 22nd, 2007

THE first survey of its kind — the National Survey on Child Abuse — virtually across the length and breadth of the country has come up with a startling revelation: a majority of children have experienced various forms of violation, physical excesses and sexual abuse. Over 50 per cent had experienced physical abuse such as slapping and corporal punishment from parents and teachers alike; more specifically nearly 65 per cent of schoolchildren, particularly from government schools, reported that they had been beaten by their teachers.

Of the many children that were sexually abused, almost 70 per cent stated that they had never reported the matter to anyone. Last but not the least, with every second child admitting to being emotionally abused, it is no exaggeration to say that the survey is possibly the single largest vote of no-confidence against the natural and trusted guardians of the young.

Under a cloud

So much so that the much-revered and much-lauded Indian family is under a cloud for not only being one of the main perpetrators of the crime but also for using the smokescreen of the sanctity of the family to hide many ugly realities. More worrisome is the finding that the teacher, often associated with a noble profession, not only proves to be ignoble but also a child-baiter, resembling the infamous Fagin abusing Oliver Twist.

So what are we battling today? As a nation, we need to recognise the sanctity of the child, as citizens to stand up and be counted and as a society to have the courage to look within and speak out.

Maybe for a start we can recognise the fact that we all need help, having probably been trapped in two sets of irreconcilable value systems and norms? Ever ready to accept modern aspirations and values but not willing to sacrifice the traditional expectations and safeguards.

In many ways, more than happy to adopt norms such as the two-child household, nuclear family, facilitating children in the pursuit of excellence and even willing to treat them as friends in need of guidance and care but at the same time privileging oneself with the right to use of the age-old techniques of authority and wherever possible impose the familial diktat. In other words, as parents and as teachers, we often end up by making sure that all that we do in the name of children is driven by the adult and their notions of right and wrong, success and failure, truth and falsehood, excellence and mediocrity.

All pervasive occurrence

So does this lack of coherence and an inability to arrive at new norms of relationships leave us no choice but to build a nation-wide consensus on the need for a legal system to recognise and define child abuse?

More importantly, has the problem of child abuse reached a proportion and magnitude that it is beyond repair at the familial and societal level and now requires the firm and decisive intervention of the legal and human rights instruments? It is in this context that the evidence appears to be damning.

It is an all-pervasive occurrence inflicted on both girls and boys and assumes every possible form — from psychological, emotional, sexual, outright neglect to all manner of perversions and physical abuse.

In fact, we are being told in no uncertain terms that the Nithari incident is only the proverbial tip of the iceberg and, as a nation, we are possibly harbouring many such horrific incidents. However, even as we see Nithari as a great wake-up call, even as the government is now busy preparing a draft bill to prohibit "Offences Against Children," what the survey has indicated is a far deeper social malaise.

In fact, an equally disturbing trend and cause of concern is the numerous less known but equally poignant experiences that the child undergoes every day at the hands of teachers and other adults. Often caught between the urge to better their lives and finding it near impossible to get the necessary support from those who matter, millions of children have stopped dreaming of and aspiring to a better life.

Social activists involved in education-related issues find that in each class there are scores of children who have virtually dropped out. "They sit in the back, often in a state of trance, not wanting to participate in any process of learning and some do not even bother to open their bags and take out their books," said Mita Deshpande, a young researcher from Delhi associated with a project on quality of education in government schools.

Others are equally quick to add that this is not only rampant in government schools but also true for children studying in the so-called public or exclusive schools. This is particularly true for children with learning disabilities. Speaking in confidence, a parent, sharing her experience of having to deal with discriminatory teachers and school authorities, said, "Not a day goes by when I am not told what is wrong with my son and I am constantly amazed at how little they know or care to know about him. While as professionals they have a long way to go, it is their attitude as fellow human beings that leaves you with so little hope." According to her they often adopt the stance that offence is the best method of defence and therefore even before she turns around and asks them what they can do together to address the concerns of the child, they present a litany of woes, as if the child is misbehaving wilfully and deliberately.

Focus on child's rights

Clearly it is time that we give up the notion that parenting, mentoring and nurturing children is a private or institutional preserve and agree to bring it within the scope of a law that defines the rights and obligation that is firmly centred on the rights of the child. In the process, set right the age-old imbalances as far as the child is concerned. To begin with, get parents to stop taking for granted their "natural rights of ownership" over the child and assume that every kind of imposed behaviour is dictated for the future well being of the child.

Even more important, make the State far more accountable than it is today. Get the government to recognise that it has contributed to the current situation by under-investing and almost neglecting and ignoring the vital area of child protection.

India ratified the Child Rights Convention in 1992. However, much more needs to be done by way of embracing its spirit and ensuring that it trickles down into the existing legal framework and government schemes and policies. Further, such a child-centred legal framework needs to ensure a policy of zero tolerance for acts of violation against children while also providing for the effective protection and promotion of the rights of the child. For instance, even while addressing issues of child delinquency under the Juvenile Justice Act, most legal experts recognise the fact, that the Act has never considered the child as a legal entity with a right to self-expression and this has posed a major challenge for child-rights groups.

Speaking on behalf of CRY, a child rights advocacy organisation, K. Geeta, Deputy Manager, welcomed the government's move to legislate on this issue. "The issue has to be tackled at all levels, starting from the child, family, community, school, as well as law enforcers," she said. Given the enormity of the challenge, she added that not only should the legal and judicial system be geared to handle the issue of child sexual abuse, at a more practical level, an all out effort needs to be made to sensitise the police. They act as the first contact point for people seeking immediate relief. Therefore, they need to be made aware of the vulnerability of children and their responsibility towards them as law enforcers.

* * *

Two out of every three children are physically abused and every second child faced emotional abuse.

Of the 69 per cent of physically abused children, 54.68 per cent were boys. An equal percentage of boys and girls faced emotional abuse.

Of the children physically and emotionally abused in family situations, parental abuse constituted 88.6 per cent and 83 per cent respectively.

65 per cent or two out of three children experienced corporal punishment.

Of the 53.22 per cent of children who faced one or more forms of sexual abuse, 5.6 per cent reported being sexually assaulted. The worst affected were children on streets, at work and in institutional care.

50 per cent of the abusers were known to the child and in positions of trust and responsibility.

32.1 per cent of children had experimented with one of the substances like alcohol, bhang, ganja, charas, heroin, smack.

Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Delhi have almost consistently reported higher rates of abuse in all forms as compared to other States.

Source: National Study on Child Abuse; Conducted by Prayas Institute of Juvenile Justice in collaboration with Ministry of Women and Child Development; Supported by UNICEF, Save the Children Fund (U.K.).

Sample Respondents: 12,477 children, 2324 young adults, 2449 stakeholders.

Location: Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar, Goa, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Assam and Mizoram.