Child Sexual Abuse in India: 90% Of Abusers Are Known To Victim

By Shipra Gupta

In the small town of Ajmer lived a shy young girl named Zoya (not a real name). She was a six-year-old with innocent eyes and a beatific smile. She loved school, and animals were her best friend. She was her father’s favourite, her mother’s headache, and her grandparents’ delight. Zoya was loved by everyone, especially by her uncle and aunt. They always played with her and bought her presents every time they visited her. One day, Zoya’s mother and aunt went shopping leaving her alone with her uncle. They played for some time and then he asked her to sit on his lap. He gently put his hands inside her top and started touching inappropriately.  Zoya didn’t understand what was happening.

It started with an inappropriate touch and went beyond her imagination. She couldn’t say anything because she didn’t know what it was. She didn’t feel pain or pleasure. It started happening at least twice a week from that day on and she thought this happens with every kid. This is how uncles are. After two years Uncle and Aunt shifted to another town. Zoya grew and realized what a heinous act was done to her. She felt dejected, betrayed, and sinful. Every time someone touched unintentionally it was the uncle’s touch. She started blaming and, hating herself for everything that happened, and fell into depression. A perfectly happy, healthy



Zoya has internally ripped apart.

This is not the story of one child. This is the story of more than half the children of our country. Each one has faced one or many forms of sexual abuse. As many as 109 children were sexually abused every day in India in 2018, according to the data by the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB). As many as 21,605 child rapes were recorded in 2018 which included 21,401 rapes of girls and 204 of boys, the data showed. Overall crimes against children has increased steeply over six times in the decade over 2008-2018, from 22,500 cases recorded in 2008 to 1, 41,764 cases in 2018, according to the NCRB data from 2008 and 2018.

The Ministry of Women and Child development did a study in 2007 and some of its findings are:

- Among them, 52.94% were boys and 47.06% girl.

- Across the country, every second child was being subjected to other forms of sexual abuse and every fifth child was facing severe forms of sexual abuse.

- The age-wise distribution of children reporting sexual abuse in one or more forms showed that though the abuse started at the age of 5 years, it gained momentum 10 years onward, peaking at 12 to 15 years and then starting to decline.

As our society is not very vocal about the issue, we can conclude that the numbers are much higher. Also, it is very difficult to find out about child sexual abuse or offer any kind of support, because 90% of the cases happen with trusted people inside the family. Mostly the perpetrators are the near and dear ones or a figure of authority. They are the people who the parents know and trust, which makes the task of speaking up (for the child) even more difficult.

Child sexual abuse is an act of sexual nature made by the perpetrator (usually an adult, but could be an older minor as well) towards a child with an intent of sexual gratification. It can be either contact or non-contact sexual abuse which comprises of verbal, physical, visual, or online.  It can also be a seemingly gentle touch with the intention of sexual gratification. It includes an array of sexual activities like fondling, inviting a child to touch or be touched sexually, intercourse, exhibitionism, involving a child for prostitution or pornography, or online child-luring by cyber-predators.

Zoya’s is also the story of every child who could have been saved from a traumatic and haunting experience only if someone would have told about sexual activity, sexual abuse, how to speak up, whom to speak with, how to make it stop and the importance of saying NO.

More than half of the battle can be won with greater awareness. Let’s talk about it with our children, teach them about secret touch, make them comfortable, gain their trust and keep an open mind so that whenever they are faced with such a situation, they know how to handle it and not fall prey to trauma that could last for most of their life.

*Image for representation purpose only