For over 25 years, Dr Mamatha Raghuveer, founder of Tharuni, has worked with girls whose lives are marked by fear, betrayal, and survival — stories that India still struggles to fully acknowledge. A 2024 Lancet study reports that 33% of girls and 14% of boys experience sexual abuse before the age of 18. In 90% of cases, the perpetrators are known to the child. Conviction rates under POCSO remain below 30% nationally, while Hyderabad alone recorded a 41% spike in crime in 2024, with CSA and cyber exploitation rising sharply.
Against this bleak landscape stands Tharuni. Since 2000, it has mentored more than 22,000 girls through Balika Sanghas and, more recently, created a sanctuary for POCSO survivors through the Swalambana Rehabilitation and Skill Centre. “When we started, our mission was clear — we had to empower adolescent girls and women,” says Dr Mamatha.
Tharuni’s earliest intervention targeted child marriages, a deeply entrenched but largely invisible issue. “We found that many girls were also being abused, especially through incest,” she says.
With weak legal protections in place, Tharuni filed public interest litigations before the NHRC and contributed to shaping the 2006 Child Marriage Act. “I was part of the Parliament committee,” she adds.
Her fight against child sexual exploitation became personal during her tenure as chairperson of the Child Welfare Committee in Warangal. One case still lingers — a seven-year-old assaulted by a neighbour she called grandfather. “We pleaded for an in-camera proceeding, but the judge refused. When she narrated the incident, people laughed. She broke down. The case was acquitted,” she recalls.
Years later, at San Diego’s Chadwick Centre, she saw child-friendly justice in action — counselling rooms with one-way mirrors where children never faced the accused. “I knew we needed this in India,” she says.
When IPS officer Swati Lakra approached her to conceptualise rape crisis centres for Telangana Police, she already had a blueprint. Over the next eight years, she worked voluntarily, later becoming the technical director for the Bharosa Centres. “My intention was to create a child-friendly environment according to the POCSO Act, in letter and spirit,” she shares.
Her work reshaped Telangana’s response to CSA. Medical examinations are now done at the Bharosa Centre, sparing children the trauma of hospital visits. Child-friendly courtrooms with one-sided mirrors ensure survivors never face the accused, while dedicated entrances prevent accidental encounters. Trauma counsellors, social workers, nurses, and legal advocates support each child from FIR to judgment.
“We increased conviction rates from 2.5% to over 60%,” she says. The model has since inspired similar courtrooms across India.
Yet even justice does not guarantee recovery. “Some girls were abandoned, especially pregnant minors. Stigma destroys them,” she says. This led to the creation of the 50-bed Swalambana Rehabilitation and Counselling Centre in August 2024.
Within months, the centre has rehabilitated 70 survivors, re-enrolled 65 in school, enabled 61 to begin income-generating work, and ensured seven safe deliveries through a partnership with Fernandez Hospital. The girls are now trained in tailoring, maggam work, beauty services, computers, yoga, music, karate, and baking. They also create bangles, bags, diyas, and embroidered goods—small steps that restore confidence.
A growing concern, she notes, is grooming: “Most POCSO cases now involve adults who manipulate minors into believing they are in relationships. Society dismisses these girls as having gone astray. We proved that wrong.”
Behind each statistic is a child. Recently, she handled the case of a 13-year-old abused by her father since age nine. “His phone was full of her photos,” she says, adding, “The trauma can last a lifetime. Seeing these girls return to school, even after childbirth, is what keeps us going.”