Child sexual abuse is the work of the demon incarnates. The perpetrators of such heinous acts can be described as nothing short of that.
Records from the Karnataka Home Department show that there have been 444 cases booked under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act in Bengaluru in 2022. It is a rising graph considering that the figures stood at 399 in 2021 and 286 in 2020. Statewide, Karnataka has registered 6,160 POCSO cases in the five years from 2018 to 2022. And yet, the demons play on.
While the figures can be shocking, what is even more so is that there could be any number of such cases that have gone unreported because in most cases the perpetrators are known to the families of the victims, often even closely related.
The latest victim of such beastly cases is a three-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted by a 22-year-old man in Jayanagar on Wednesday. The child sexual predator, a neighbour, knew that the parents of the victim, who are daily wage workers, left their daughter back home while at work, and took advantage of her being alone.
Unfortunately, the police are helpless in bringing the cases down, let alone completely put a stop to it. It is a Herculean task for them to prevent this degree of heinousness. Also, despite the POCSO Act being stringent, it apparently does not deter the predators who possibly presume that everything remains under the wraps and that it would be easy to get away with it, considering the age of the victim.
There is also a disgusting and unfounded belief that encourages some men afflicted by HIV/AIDS or any sexually transmitted disease to victimize children — that having sex with a virgin girl can cure the disease. It is called the “virgin cleansing myth”. And what easier target for these disgusting ignoramuses than innocent little girls? No amount of scientific data pointing to the contrary can erase such beliefs, which stand as justifications for their beastly indulgences, while not just infecting them with their own disease but also shattering them psychologically and physiologically. Nothing can be more disgusting than it gets!
Moreover, there is no telling how many men (rarely, even women) in the society take to this crime as they themselves have been similarly targeted in their own childhood, or even witnessed their own loved ones being targeted by such beastliness.
And it’s not just girls, even little boys are targeted. The courts have clarified that the POCSO Act is gender-neutral, and have stressed that the unnatural offence of sodomy under Section 4 of the POCSO Act which states that evidence of even the “slightest degree of penetration” is enough for convicting the predator involved.
However, as most such cases targeting little girls and boys cannot be prevented by the police, it is up to society and the family that needs to act to completely rid itself of such crimes.
But there are inherent challenges. Although of crucial importance, in most cases, parents refrain from discussing the topic of sex and sexual abuse with their children. They feel it is taboo to discuss such topics with those so young. Besides, in many cases, the parents themselves are unaware of the threat posed by potential predators who remain hidden within the society — even in one’s own family — and that they could strike at the slightest opportunity available.
This calls for emergent services of the Department of Women & Child Welfare along with the schools and the fraternity of psychologists and counsellors. They have to put their heads together to draw up a strategy to spread awareness in a comprehensive, albeit direct and simple manner, to make parents and children aware of — and alert about — the presence of such predators in society, and how to detect odd behaviour and physical touch.
Most importantly, parents need to be alert and encouraging towards children expressing their fears to them, and not take them lightly when they do so, even if a close relative is the one being red-flagged by the child. It is time to start the process of systematically and efficiently putting down these perpetrating beasts, more so the beastliness itself.