By Barkha Sethi:
Most of the people dream about their childhood and wish that they could live it once again. But this is not for everyone. Some people think it to be a nightmare they came out of. People, especially women, are assaulted for sexual pleasure. Children under the age of 7 are also threatened and assaulted for sexual abuse. Their most precious time turns most into threatening time for them, the time which destroyed their lives in various ways. Little children who even do not know about their personal parts and how to protect them are assaulted for sexual pleasure. This seems to be very painful when heard. And this had been the worst time or the most painful time for those children who suffered from this child sex abuse. More than 55% of children are the victim of this epidemic.
- Personal parts of children being touched by strangers or someone, who should not without any need.
- Children forced to take personal parts of others in their mouths of body.
- Personal parts of others being put in the body of children.
- Personal parts touched while eve teasing with girls.
- Rape is also included in child sex abuse.
The age at which children should play, study or talk to people, know them, make new friends, the sexually abused children are afraid of talking to people, even their own parents, go out and play with friend, or they are not even able to concentrate on their studies. The budding flowers are destroyed before they grow and feel this world. They even sometimes start hating their parents who could not understand their pain and their feelings.
I, myself, have seen certain cases and also suffered from some. But mine was not so dangerous that my life has been destroyed. Rather I learned lessons from them and became brave, bold and truthful. My mother was and is the biggest supporter of my life who gave me right teachings and right paths on which I walked. And my father taught me to be bold and truthful. They became my friends, friends with whom I could share my every secret, every problem.
I shared my experience because I strongly feel that parents and their teachings play a major and vital role in the development of a child’s life. Children from childhood should be taught about bravery and sharing everything with their parents so that no child could face this bad time. And parents should themselves be aware about the change in their behavior and way of living of the victimised children. Parents should never trust anyone; anyone includes even their own family members, while dealing with their precious gems.
Parents should themselves handle their children as trusting others results in destroying the lives of their children. They cannot trust the tuition teachers, the school teachers, uncles, aunts and even the grandparents. I would like to clear one more myth here which most of us carry with us that only girls are sexually abused but that is not true. Boys too are harassed for sexual pleasure, not necessarily by women but men too. I have seen many examples and heard some. I would like to share some of them.
In one case a 3 year old little girl was sexually abused by her own grandfather. In another case a young boy of 5 year of age was harassed and threatened by his uncle (mama) till the age of 18. In one more case a 13 year old girl was nearly raped by her cousin brother but was saved by her efforts of saying no and running away from him. Also, in one case a girl was used by her home tutor for 8 years for sexual pleasure at her own home without knowledge of her parents.
The reason these children continued to be the sufferer of this abuse is because they were being threatened, scolded, beaten and scared by their users. They even could not dare to tell their parents about it. But children should be taught in such way that they should believe their parents and tell everything to them.
Our government has also made some laws for the protection of such children and to give punishment to the criminals. For those who do not want to move to court there are some organizations that give counseling to the criminals and provide protection and support to the victims and solutions to move out of it.
I am using word criminal here because I personally feel they are the criminals who ruined the life of little children. Finally, I conclude this article with suggestion that everyone who reads this article should be aware of their surroundings and help those who need it. One should never be afraid of helping someone and supporting the truth. Talk freely about these kinds of problems with others and suggest to them solutions.
[box bg=”#fdf78c” color=”#000″]About the author:
Barkha Sethi is a Journalism Student from Delhi University, with the aim of solving critical issues of the society by making use of her learning. To read her other posts, click here.[/box]