Child Abuse

 24th November, 2008. 

I was just walking out of college with my friends. I don't remember too well but I guess we were going to the lab for practicals. Well, I am usually really fond of kids and whenever I see any kid, they catch my attention instantly. But, this kid that I will be talking about, he really grabbed every one's attention and that was not with a positive charm. He was 6-7 years of age and he was running on the road, crying out loud with his clothes in his hand. There were some 3-4 middle aged men who literally dragged him to a nearby chemist shop and slapped him three to four times on his face. One of them even savagely twisted his arm with the grip of his hand. The poor kid was crying out so loud but not a single person helped him, not even me or my friends. Trust me, I wanted to help him. I wanted to question them and stop them. But honestly, I was afraid. But I was really shocked, and ashamed, that even my friends, the guys wouldn't raise their voice. When I asked another by-stander what was going on, he told me that the kid had robbed some soap bars from the shop and he deserved to be treated that way because that was not the first time he did it. He also told me that these people only took off his clothes to punish him according to the Hindi statement "nanga karke sadak par chodna." I was just telling my friends that this is not the way to treat a child, when one of the men hitting the child started giving some Hindi dialogues about how this will teach him a lesson not to do wrong things. I should have argued back, but I left as I was getting late for my practicals. 

I couldn't stop thinking about it. I went online and googled some articles on child maltreatment, and that's when I learnt how serious this issue is. 

 

Child abuse is one of the MOST shameful acts in the society. When a child is neglected, verbally abused, sexually ill treated or emotionally harassed, he/she is abused. Many children are victims of child abuse and in most cases, the abusers are known to the children. Most child abuse happens in a child's home, schools or communities that they interact with. 

 

There are four major categories of child abuse: neglect, physical abuse, psychological/emotional abuse, and sexual abuse.

Neglect is when the responsible adult fails to provide the child with the basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter, emotional support and affection, or educational help.

Physical abuse is any kind of physical aggression shown to the child by an adult which involves hitting, striking, burning, choking or shaking a child.

Psychological abuse involves the withholding of affection, degrading or shamming a child, inappropriate or extreme punishments and putting up too many restrictions. 

Sexual abuse does not categorize only rape. Touching genital organs, unnecessary embracing and kissing, etc. also mounts to child abuse. Child sexual abuse is any kind of sexual act between an adult and a child, including penetration, fondling, sexual molestation, incest, sodomy, commercial sexual exploitation, pornography, sex tourism, net crimes, exposure to adult sexuality and violations of privacy.

 

 

Children between the ages of 6 to 14 are highly in danger of being abused. Most of the time, the child does not understand what is happening to him/her and in other cases, the child is either afraid to complaint against those abusive adults or simply helpless. They may not be sure of the response they will get. Also, there is always this stupid logic behind "respecting and obeying the adults" which the children are forced to follow. Especially girls in India, grow up under a lot of restrictions and hence, the miserable little kids are forced to blindly follow their adults and cannot even argue with them. 

  

Tolerating any kind of physical or mental abuse can leave a very strong negative impact on a child's psychology. Emotional effects include low self esteem, depression and anxiety, eating disorders, relationship difficulties, alienation and withdrawal from the world and personality disorders. Physical effects include injury, death, lifelong health problems and physical disabilities. Behavioral effects include problems in school and work, suicide attempts, criminal or antisocial behaviour, substance abuse, aggressive behaviour, etc. 

 

I knew a person who was a victim of child abuse. A shop-keeper that he knew used to make him and his friend play with his private parts and encouraging them to "play" with each other. Now, he is under severe depression and is addicted to pornography. He neither trusts anyone nor lets anyone trust him. 

Another friend of mine, a 17 year old girl was being ill-treated by her tuition teacher, who passed indecent comments at her and started getting a little touchy. She couldn't confront the issue to her parents as they blindly trusted the teacher. Eventually, she stopped going for her tuitions, and instead, she would lie to her parents and go somewhere else. This affected her studies as well. And these are just two examples of the victims of child abuse. 

 

All kinds of abusers are lurking around everywhere. Most of them have such a "respectable" image that people don't believe when they are accused. 

Only and only by trusting the children, giving maximum possible time to them and by showing them that you really care for them, child abuse can be tackled. Help them build up their confidence by making them feel comfortable and ensure them that you will always support them. And please, do not blame the child for such incidents. It is never their fault.

 

Raise you voice against what is wrong. Protect the children, protect their future. Fight against child abuse.