Rape within family turns kids into silent victims

[1]

Thirteen-year-old Reshma (name changed) had silently been suffering at the hands of none other than her own father. She was ten when he allegedly began raping her. Finally, she told her brother’s wife that her father, a resident of North Delhi, would get drunk and repeatedly rape her.

While Reshma found the courage to confide in someone and get her father arrested, many children continue to suffer silently, especially when the perpetrators are family members, neighbours or family friends. Of the 489 cases of rape reported in 2010, 52 of the accused were relatives. But many more go unreported, say experts.
What makes it difficult to curb child abuse is that kids don’t open up about their plight, say experts. “We talk of cultivating a friendly relationship with kids so that they speak up about things. But it’s uglier and complicated when the father himself is the abuser,” says Nandini Jha, activist and counselor.
Last year, a school cab driver, who would drug, rape and film the kids, was arrested only after the kids spoke of the ordeal to their neighbour, and not their mother.
Psychologist and counsellor, Dr Geetanjali Kumar says that parents need to listen to the pain of the children with their eyes and heart. “From the very beginning kids have to be made aware of the unconditional acceptance they enjoy within the family,” she says. “There is no need for parents to become friends, they just have to be approachable and available,” she says, narrating the case of an abused child. “‘I told you mom, and you made me choose between myself and my family. And I chose to keep my pain private,’ the boy told his mother,” she says.
Unfortunately, unlike the West, the legal system to deal with child abuse in India has many loopholes, and the abuser manages to escape the clutches of the law, says Dr Rajat Mitra, who counsels victims of abuse. “Even if a child confides in a teacher or counselor, still the testimony has to be routed through the parents. And it provides a lot of immunity to the abuser, who in many cases is a close relative or a member of the family,” says Dr Mitra.
Dr Mitra recalls how an abusive father managed to escape as the kid retracted his previous statement on the behest of his mother. “The mother threatened him saying that he can’t say such things against his father,” he says, adding that children get caught and tangled in a web of fear, sense of loyalty and guilt.
Then there are obstacles like social stigma. “We have to stop taking the girl child as burden. And she becomes more of a burden when she undergoes a trauma like rape. Her social acceptance, which means marriage prospects, diminish,” adds Nandini.
Dr Mitra, who has dealt with about 8,000 cases of child abuse in the past 14 years, adds that even the new law fails to cover the loopholes. “The issue can’t be tackled by taking any empirical measures. It can be addressed by taking into account the civil society, and those working at the ground level,” he adds.