CONTEXTUAL RESEARCH

Understanding Child Sexual Abuse (CSA)

Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) is a form of child abuse. Child Sexual Abuse happens when a person uses a child for his/her sexual gratification. Child Sexual Abuse is mostly committed by someone who is in a position of power and/or authority, and sometimes, even in a position of trust. The very nature of abuse implies a relationship, and thus it is much easier for such a person to take advantage of the child’s helplessness and vulnerability. CSA may be physical, visual or verbal in nature. Child Sexual Abuse is a violation of the child’s body as well as of the child’s trust and is against the law. Child Sexual Abuse can be categorized as contact and non-contact abuse, which encompass the following :

Contact Abuse

• Penetration of anus, vagina, oral sex

• Fondling child’s private body parts

• Making the child fondle the abuser’s private parts. Also using emotional blackmail such as ‘you would do this if you loved me’ or comparing previous encounters to make someone feel obliged to do something sexual.

• Forcible kissing

• Sexual touching of any part of the body

Non-Contact Abuse

• Making the child exhibit private body parts

• Exhibiting private body parts to the child

• Photographing a child in the nude

• Making the child view pornographic materials

• Online abuse including making, viewing or distributing child abuse images

• Encouraging a child to watch or hear sexual acts

• Using sexually explicit talk and sexually abusive language with the child

In context of child development

India with 1.21 billion people constitutes as the second most populous country in the world, while children represents 39% of total population of the country. The emotional, social, physical and psychological development of children has a direct impact on the overall development of the country.

Child development entails the biological, psychological and emotional changes that occur in human beings between birth and the conclusion of adolescence. Child maltreatment during infancy and early childhood has been shown to negatively affect child development, including brain and cognitive development, attachment, and academic achievement. Child abuse and neglect can have enduring physical, intellectual, and psychological repercussions into adolescence and adulthood.

This study revolves around understanding Child Sexual Abuse and how we can work on the prevention stage for the overall development of child.For which we went ahead with understanding the population composition of Gandhinagar and further developed an analysis on the area to be focused.

Field research with school principal : Personal Interview

Framing the plan for conducting primary research for teachers aim at need assessment of the solution/service:

Questions to be asked at School :

• Do they have good touch and bad touch education, if yes how does the school have a approach for this. At what age is this information is provided? What is the medium of communication? If No, why they didn’t thought about it or where they having issues to implement it.

• How and who trains the teachers about the educating kids about the good and bad touch.

• Have the school ever tried to educate parents about CSA and how did they reacted to it?

• Do they educate parents or involve them while imparting good touch bad touch education to parents.

• What are the activities that the school is conducting for socio-cultural development of the child?

• What are the existing approach of the curriculum which aims at encouraging kids to express themselves through informal channels?

• How often does parents get to meet teachers and discuss about the child’s well being?

• Availability of counsellor or psychiatrist for students, if yes then what age

• How are they ensuring safety of child in school ?

• What is mode of transport children are using for coming to the school ?

• What kind of activities are conducted for parents to participate in the school ?

• How do you ensure that the kid is having a healthy communication with the parents.

School Type : Co-ed

Rangoli pre school ; Interview

Participant : Principle

Gender : Female

Duration : 20 mins

Strength : approx 20 - 35 kids

Infrences :

• The principle was reluctant in sharing any information initially however later she did gave us some information.

• Principle herself conducts presentation on good touch and bad touch for kids above 4 yrs and educate kids with demonstration on a dummy once a year. The school started such practice in 2017 after they were instructed by the government to do so.

• There was a hint of personal touch between parents and principle thus the communication we presume was better between teacher and parents around the child’s development. She told us in case of doubt they would always call up parents to discuss if something was wrong with kid, upon happening of any event or as and when need arises the principle also councells the parents about being responsive to kids withdrawal or understanding kids behaviour.

• However there is no discussion on the topic of CSA between parents and school in fact i think this area is not something that have bothered much to the school as the composition of the kids that come to the school is of much much younger age group.

School Type : Co-ed

St. Xavier : Interview

Participant : Principal

Gender : male

Duration : 20 mins

Inferences :

Apart from annual day and Parent teacher meeting day there's no other interaction between parents and school, No formal communication between the students and school is taking place around the issue of physical misconduct or sexual abuse, informal handling of the situation happens if and when need arises by the teachers at their individual level, teachers have internal strategies for handling situations. After the interview i felt like that the principal was focused on making politically correct statements rather than discussing the issues if any they are facing with the kids. He believed that there rather is no problem and in topics likes CSA school cannot do much about that in terms of formal education.

Field research with parents : Focused group discussion

Common Problems a Facilitator May Face and how to go about it,

• Someone disagrees and wants to argue with you: Welcome disagreement, hear him/her with full attention and find common ground. Start further discussion from this common ground, elaborate on the points where disagreement exists.

• Everyone looks bored: Encourage participation and discussion from the group.

• Some people monopolise the discussion: Give recognition to their knowledge and enthusiasm and control them diplomatically.

• Private conversation erupts: Encourage them to share what they are talking about with everyone. In most of these situations, participants talk about the issues being discussed, but may hesitate to voice opinions openly.

• Two participants start arguing with each other: Do not take sides. Verbalise the positions of the participants and ask others in the group to give their opinion on the issue, then objectively summarise the discussion.

• Controversial topic. If any controversial topic is brought up, it should be left to the group to sort out or be answered collectively.

• Personal questions. If personal questions are asked, the facilitator should use his/her discretion in answering. If the question is unanswerable, just convey the difficulty calmly

Topics : Child safety, good touch bad touch, school education, child’s behaviour, family system, online information exposure, societal taboo

Sukhan Heights Residential colony

Duration : 1 hours 45 minutes

Participants : 10-15

Researchers : 3

Composition of the society : employees and business men 80:20 ratio , migrants from diverse areas from india.

Strata : upper middle class

Personal observation ,

All you need to do is trigger a conversation, Mothers are participatory and enthusiastic when it comes to discussing about their child so as we started triggering them with critical questions from around the child’s environment the conversations were soon taken over by the mothers.Lack of communication between ‘Parents’, We witness as well as were told that there is high level of social involvement of the women in this society outside home, where they spent almost 2hours every day in the park, while their kids are playing together they exchanging information and thoughts on range of things but as parents they fail to discuss about the problem or the challenges that these womens are facing as a mother at home. Infact we were told that never before they have ever talked to each other about the range of topics that they talked today when they were asked by us, we hope these ‘mothers’ will talk to each other from today on :)

Educated parents are more conscious and open about issues of the their child’s growth, the composition of the mothers who are living in this society was majorly educated and hence they were well aware about the misconduct that takes place around the child and wants to talk about these issues and find solutions to issues which are the roadblock to their child’s growth.Not everybody was speaking not every human being is as expressive as others, we realised that few mothers were not that expressive and they were not as participative as others and rather they were just observing and listening to the conversation, i feel she wanted to say something but she wasn’t saying anything, all i can have are assumptions around her quietness.

Opinions from mothers ,

Communication between child and parents is better in nuclear family as compared to joint family system.Unlike joint family system where voice of the adult is heard more and parents are so involved in the family’s social construct that they sometimes overlook and ignorant around the issues of the child. However in-case of nuclear family parents are able to focus on the child more and voices of everyone is heard. Kids learn more from peers and school, one of the mother was of the opinion that the kids learn more from school and their peers or to put it forward mother was of the opinion that her 12 year old son listen more to what school says and his friends says rather than what she says her to do so educating kids about social behaviour at school is equally important as that in home. Communication gap between mother and father persist sometimes as informed by one of the mother she said that may be parents are individually looking at the kids wellbeing but sometimes they lack to discuss among each other. Thus she suggested that both the parents should be involved together when such kind of topics are triggered as that would make the communication between the parents better.Parents more often fail to identify symptoms of abuse due to there assumptions some parents shared that they fail to understand certain ambiguity that persist in the child’s behaviour where the child even upon asking does not tells anything and they struggle to handle such withdrawal and sometimes fail to judge the reasons and possible responses as shared by the mother of a teenage girl.Best age to introduce the concept of child sexual abuse would be between 8yr to 12 yrs as suggested by the mothers as child below the said age is to fragile to understand and might affect his/her phycology negatively, it might scare them or instill fear and mistrust towards other which might hamper their growth. It would be nice if we know how to respond to certain questions, one of the mother said that sometimes kids upfrontly ask questions to which parents are not sure how to respond if only they knew how to respond they will not make mistake of reacting.

Field research with NGO

GANATAR

An NGO which started in 1992 in Ahmedabad. Now it mainly works in the city and village level of rural areas like Surendranagar, Sanand, Nalsarovar, Narolgam etc. They have a team of 85 members including admin and workers. They have their campuses in surendranagar, Nalkatha, patadi, kutch and vapi, where all their team members are active.Volunteer are separate from this count. Ganatar main focus areas are : Outreach, Advocacy and Awareness, for child rights in rural areas of gujarat Gujarat. They mostly cover schools, villages and slums reaching out to women and younger generations.

They show their documentary named Komal based on Child Sexual Abuse/ Good touch-Bad touch. They also arrange group discussions among parents. Children appointed for Bachpan Sena helps arrange such meetings.