One morning, just out of the blue, as I was giving my two-and-half-year-old daughter a bath, I taught her about body parts only Amma could touch. And if anyone else did, she had to tell me. A deal was struck. We went over that crucial 'lesson' again the next morning, like a memory-game-of-sorts. A friend asked me if she was old enough or smart enough to understand these things. Maybe, maybe not; but it had to be done.
The next day, every parent's worst fears came true, and made breaking news. I was too shocked to even contemplate the amount of agony and anger that news thrust me with—a 11-year-old hearing-impaired child gangraped by 17 men, right outside the supposed safety of her home. A childhood crippled by the building's security guard, plumber, electrician, gardener, lift operator and who not. The gory details of the crime came to light when the child complained of stomach pain, and opened up to her elder sister. Only, it took the child seven months to open up.
If this was right outside home, at Kathua, it was within the sanctity and safety of a temple. And then there are endless 'stories' from playschools, classrooms, and more homes. Where exactly can we let our children just be? To play, to learn, go out for a cycle ride, or just take the horses out to graze in the valley? Where we do not mar childhoods and flood their inquisitive minds with questions about good touch and bad touch, safe and unsafe touch?
At the gated community in Chennai, at least some of these men would have been friendly 'uncles', 'bhaiyyas' or 'annas' for the child. She would have smiled at them often, maybe. What makes it gut-wrenching is the realisation that whatever happened was not one of those spur-of-the-moment crimes. It was planned, executed and re-executed, over months. Did these men go back to their homes after the 'act', tuck in their little ones and pray no harm comes upon them? For all you know they might have been men who taught their children about 'touch'.
Perpetrators within a child's trust circle is what often makes coming out against them difficult. And ironically, most sexual violators lurk around in our homes and backyards. According to an oft-cited 2007 Study on Child Abuse by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, over 53 per cent of children surveyed reported facing one or more forms of sexual abuse. And the catch is—50 per cent of the abusers were known to the child or in a position of trust and responsibility. And at times like these, one can't help but remember journalist Pinki Virani's book Bitter Chocolate—one of the first books in India on child sexual abuse, that brought out damning anecdotes of children, both girls and boys (yes), being sexually abused by men and women (yes) within safe spaces like homes. Close to two decades after the book was first published, little has changed.
With an increasing number of cases being reported, and adults attempting to have the big talk with children, 'good and bad touch' is being induced into young minds. Though a positive move, this also comes with its share of downs. Often, marking certain parts of the body as 'safe' or 'unsafe' can negatively affect a child's body image. For a child, the idea or good intentions behind these lessons are difficult to grasp and confuses them. And importantly, sexual abuse is not only about 'touch'. Sometimes, perpetrators may show pornography, or revel in watching a child undress. Do not be mistaken: this, too, is abuse. Moving beyond the realm of 'good touch and bad touch', new schools of thought also incorporate other warning signs to watch out for. At the end of these lessons of caution, what is important is that a child feels free to come open up about it to a person of trust. This sort of trust comes only from frequent conversations that bust the stigma around matters of the body.
All said, we can teach them, and empower them to identify or fight perpetrators right from an age so tender. But I'd rather have my child learning to spot colours, or figure out how to balance those Lego blocks together, than which parts of the body are not to be touched by random people. I'd rather have her explore body and sexuality on her own, in her own space and time. But, can we afford to give her the 'luxury' of that time and space? We cannot.