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Raped minors played dead to live: Horrifying story of sexual violence

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DailyBiteJul 18, 2017 | 17:31

Raped minors played dead to live: Horrifying story of sexual violence

Two girl children, aged six and eight, had not only to suffer being sexually violated, but also had to “play dead to live”. Their alleged rapist, a 22-year-old factory worker named Pankaj Kumar, wanted to kill them after raping them in order to erase any signs of guilt, according to the girls’ testimony.

The harrowing report in the Indian Express today lays bare the daily horrors of rape culture that have by now made us impervious to routine brutalities. Sexual violence affecting minors, girls who are not even teenagers, just children whose lives are now forever scarred by the act of pure cruelty, is about trudging the depths of depravity, and normalising it until we become inured to its effect on women and children.

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According to the report, the two girls have been hospitalised and recovering from the bodily injuries, after being brought in critical conditions. The report quotes Dr Puneeta Mahajan, medical superintendent at Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital in Delhi:

“The victims were brought in a critical condition. They are now in post-operative care. A team of doctors is monitoring their condition, which is, at present, stable.”

The report also quotes a senior police officer: “The accused called the girls, gave them a Rs 100 note and asked them to get a packet of Eno from a shop nearby. The girls went to the shop but couldn’t find the product. The accused then asked them to accompany him to another shop, and said he would also buy them candy.”

One of the girls’ mother said the man took the kids to an isolated park near a canal, about 150 metres from their home, and raped and beat them. He hit them on their faces when they started crying. Only when they stopped struggling did he dump what he thought were their dead bodies in the pit and left the scene.

Sexual violence against children is a plague upon society, and is the worst form of depravity on display. Sexual abuse and commercial sexual exploitation of children are two sides of the same coin, but the latter forms an enormous and illegal economy of criminal abuse.

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Not only in Delhi, but reports on sexual abuse and violence in schools in Bangalore have hogged the national headlines for a few years now. Child pornography, trafficking of children into commercial sex work, etc are about branching out of this very perversity of sexually violating young girls and boys, raping them and then trying to beat them to death. The mutilation of children’s bodies is becoming a routine aspect of many particularly horrifying stories coming from our bustling metros.

In this case, the two girls were found, albeit seriously injured, and unbearably traumatised. Last year too, an eight-year-old rape victim pretended to be dead to escape, in Delhi’s Aman Vihar locality. The girl was admitted to Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital and she had said that her rapist had threatened to kill her.

In 2012, the Indian Parliament had passed the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, (POCSO), defining a child as any person below the age of 18 years, and providing protection to all children under 18 from the offences of sexual assault, sexual harassment and pornography. Aspects of touch that can have a criminal intent were listed out, as well as non touch behaviour that has obscene intent, such as photographing a child for pornography.

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However, despite having adequate laws in place to address sexual violence against children, one in three cases of rape is against a child. According to UNICEF, more than 7,200 children including infants are raped every year; many more go unreported.

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Photo: Darpan Magazine

The scarring of a child’s delicate mind and body by sexual violence is the worst form of perversity that must be addressed stringently by the authorities. However, the deep connections with everyday culture of violence, against the vulnerable groups including women and children, sexual minorities, trans-genders, religious minorities and others, cannot be not stressed.

We not only need fast-track courts to look at cases of child sex abuse, but also for the legal system to understand the language of the child, as Asha Bajpai, a professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences and legal scholar on child sex abuse says.

According to Bajpai, “Under the present system the natural habitat of the victim is generally disturbed, which is a source of trauma to the child. The delays in the system at every stage further add to the trauma of the child victim. There are several cases pending in the courts as the trial goes on for years. In several cases the girls have become adults by the time the final judgment comes through. The investigation of trial of sexual offences have to be made time bound. Special courts need to be set up. There is a need for a special provision relating to medical examination of child victim in the CrPC. The absence of a proper medical report in the case of a sexual assault goes against the child assaulted the mental health of victim needs to be attended to, as the trauma has to be reduced.”

Unless we come together as a society to protect our children from culture of violence and sexual abuse, we’ll be looking at false starts to deal with this menace.

Nelson Mandela, the great South African leader and anti-apartheid activist, had once said:  “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way it treats its children.”

Last updated: July 18, 2017 | 17:31
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