Child Sexual abuse : The cruel face of society

"Children hallow small things. A child is a priest of the ordinary, fulfilling a sacred office that absolutely no one else can fill. The simplest gesture, the ephemeral movement, the commonest object all become precious beyond words when touched, noticed, lived by one's own dear child."
Mike Mason, The Mystery of Children (Colorado Springs: Waterbrook Press, 2001)

But for many people in this world child are not so, for them they are simply some ways to satisfy their sexual desires. They treat them like sexual toys which didn’t complain and after the use they simply ignore them. I am not saying something about the things which are happened in the Moon or Mars, but right in front of us, in the middle of our society.

It’s not started after the globalisation or something- usually people find an excuse in globalisation for whatever bad things in society - but it was here for many years. American Psychiatric Association states that "Child cannot concent to sexual activity with adults" and "An adult who engages in sexual activity with a child is performing a criminal and immoral act which never be considered normal or socially acceptable behaviour". Everyone knows it but who cares?

What is more disgusting is, 80-90% of the people who abuses the child sexually are not strangers but people acquainted with them. Yes, relatives!!! Some studies say that 30% of offenders are close relatives and 60% are other relatives or acquaintances. And it’s not a rare phenomenon, some 15-25% of women and 5-15% of men are victim of some type of sexual abuse in their childhood. Anyway numbers are not matter here. Different studies may show different results, but the fact remains the same - children are abused in our societies which are so proud about moral values!!!

The after effects of this sexual abuse will create hurricanes in child's life. It will affect their psychological, emotional, social and physical dimensions. Depression, post-traumatic stress, anxiety, eating disorder, poor self esteem, dissociative and anxiety disorders, general psychological distress and disorders such as somatisation, neurosis, chronic pain, sexualized behaviour, learning problems, behavioural problems etc are some problems waiting for the victim.

Now a day’s child sexual abuse is very common; offender’s advantage is the fact that kids usually don’t know about sex in that small ages, and they will usually threaten the child to hide the matter from their parents. After all, majority of the people, who abuses the kids are their relatives/acquaintances, the same people who are supposed to protect them.

In India, things are not looking good, Study on Child abuse, India 2007 says that out of 2211 child 42% of child experienced sexual abuse [48%boys and 39%girls] and in majority of the cases offenders are people known to the child. Read the report for many more mind blowing facts.

In these situations parents must make sure that their child are on the safe hands whenever they are away from the child, and teach the child how to behave on situations like that, and enable a proper communication channel between the parents and child.

What the government is doing? Making laws stricter will not solve the problem, give sexual education to children’s in school. If society can tolerate; in fact celebrate marriage and first night, then on which grounds they are opposing sexual education? If adults can sexually exploit child, then what is the problem in giving sexual education to kids, so that they can recognise under what situations they are going through, and will be able to communicate properly with parents on these issues.

Childs are the future, don’t make it past. Stop violence against children.

Sajeev