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Friday, March 29, 2024

Free a Girl’s ‘Voice For Justice’ urges women to speak up against child sexual exploitation

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New Delhi: Every year, 2 million children are sexually exploited worldwide but less than 1 per cent of the perpetrators are ever convicted.

To address this, Free a Girl, a global NGO, launched a social media campaign, ‘Voice For Justice’, Thursday to mobilise people and raise awareness about sexual exploitation of children and gather support for their proper rehabilitation. The campaign encourages women to raise their voice for the child survivors of sexual exploitation who are not able to do so.

“Free a Girl has given me the opportunity to study law. Now, I have graduated with LLB and I want to fight for justice against heinous crimes of child prostitution,” said Sinaj, a survivor, during a panel discussion Thursday.

Sinaj is also one of the first graduates of the School for Justice — an award-winning initiative launched in India in 2017 to educate survivors of sexual exploitation so they can become lawyers, para-legals, police officers, socials workers, sociologist or journalists and fight against child prostitution.

Free a Girl officially launched another such school in Nepal Thursday.

During the panel discussion, which was a joint initiative by ThePrint and Dutch NGO Free a Girl, experts discussed the reasons behind sexual exploitation and why laws fail to act as a deterrent.

Other panellists included Tara Kaushal, author of ‘Why Men Rape— An Indian Undercover Investigation’, Supreme Court lawyer Meenakshi Arora, activist Pranaadhika Sinha Devburman, and Bishwo Khadka, chairperson of Maiti Nepal, a non-profit dedicated to survivors of human trafficking. The session was moderated by Ananya Bhardwaj, Senior Assistant Editor at ThePrint.

‘All sorts of men rape’

When asked about what could be leading men to rape, Kaushal said, “I applied a framework of social class. All sorts of men rape. Their reasons for doing so are different within different social milieus.”

She explained that there are two broad ways rape happens. When the perpetrator objectifies the victim and doesn’t really know it is rape, and second when the perpetrator looks at the victim as fully human but wants to assert power and pain on them.

The conversation then moved on to rape laws.

Bhardwaj said, “Rape laws were made stringent after the 16 December 2012 gangrape case. There were nationwide protests, pressure on the government, rapists were hanged and the trial was fast-tracked. Yet, it didn’t act as a deterrent.”

Taking the discussion further, she asked: “Are stronger laws a solution?”

Arora, a senior counsel at the Supreme Court, replied that stringent laws are never the solution.

“When a judge has to render a judgment and convict an accused for a minimum of 20 years, he knows if there is a slightest of mistake the man goes in for 20 years, then there is a hesitation which creeps in,” she said.

This is why conviction rates are low, Arora explained, adding that “prescription of minimum sentences without giving the judge any discretion in cases is not a good idea, it will reduce your number of convictions.”

Sexual exploitation of children

Bhardwaj then posed a question on children who are sexually exploited and how it affects their life. “Sometimes, a child is not even able to comprehend that it was an abuse, many who dare to speak out to their families are often discouraged. How does it affect their life?”

Devburman, founder of the campaign One Million Against Child/Adult Sexual Abuse, explained that India needs a culture of “name and shame”.

“We don’t have an environment where it is safe for children to speak out about anything they are going through. It is because we are not sensitised enough to have the right reaction or the right empathy, either to listen or to respond and move on to support filing cases,” she said.

Khadka explained how an entire “package” was needed to address these issues, saying only stringent laws and policies are not enough.

“Since 1993, Maiti Nepal has been working on awareness, advocacy, prosecution, prevention, rehabilitation, rescue, repatriation, income generation and restoration of the trafficking survivors. It is a package that needs to work together,” he explained.

This is a ThePrint ValueAd initiative.

2 COMMENTS

  1. Is Rape an inherited Indian traditional culture & social norm?

    A panel of 550 independent global experts unanimously voted India as No.1 Capital of Rape, worst than war torn Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Sudan, Saudi,…(Reuters)

    97% rape convicts in Delhi told interviewer what’s wrong with rape! One even wanted to marry his 7yo victim. quietly after release.

    According to the latest National Crime Records Bureau data, 2016 saw 19,765 cases of child rape being registered in India – a rise of 82% from 2015 when 10,854 cases were recorded.

    -Police recorded 19,765 cases of child rape in 2016.

    -240 million women living in India were married before they turned 18.

    -53.22% of children who participated reported some form of sexual abuse.

    Sources: Indian government, Unicef

    95% Rapists are known to Victims, often are family & relatives. A deep seated Indian culture problem?

    According to gov data , 90% of victims were Dalits and 85% of Dalit rape victims were underage girls, while 16% of Indian population is classified as Dalit. This is very significant high rate Dalit is targeted.

    “Eight Hindu men have been charged with the Kashmir gang-rape and murder. Their trial began in a fast track court on Monday. Two ministers from the ruling Hindu nationalist BJP who openly attended a rally in support of the accused.

    30% of India election candidates have criminal records in rapes, extortion and violent. Remaining are families representing criminals still serving prison terms.

  2. AMIR KHAN’s daughter has alleged sexual abuse when she was 14.
    Mr. Print Team please go after the perpetrators and the father who claimed his wife wanted to settle outside India for the safety of kids after Modi came to power.
    DO NOT KONW IF THE GIRL CLAIMING THE ABSUSE WAS 14 before or after the 2014?

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