with Prof. Andrew Sesuraj

Child abuse is something we read and hear about everyday these days, across the world and in India. Please tell us more about what constitutes abuse and how to identify it.

Abuse takes many forms. Broadly, it can be classified as physical violence, emotional violence, sexual violence, neglect and discrimination. Gender-based violence is a term used across the world to describe abuse that originates from discrimination based on the victim’s sex. It exists in all countries, be it Norway and Sweden, among the top ten in the Human Development Index, or those at the lowest rungs. In India we compare caste and race, incidents happen related to these, but all this is
all because of gender-based violence only. It occurs between peers, within family, in work environments, inside classrooms and among all age groups.

Global perspective
The issues related to adolescence, such as identity, suicide and drug usage have been recently identified as global issues. They can be termed as violence because unaddressed abuse turns into violence again children. For example, if we are not able to stop the availability of drugs to children it means that we are allowing the child to be violated. Drug addiction and suicide are considered disorders but I would still term them as violence. According to the UNCRC (United Nations Convention
on the Rights of the Child), the Government is the duty-bearer which must ensure that a child is surviving, developing, protected and has space to participate in the community on any decisions made. This has been ratified by the Government of India, meaning that the government has agreed to
take on the primary responsibility of children’s protection, survival and development. The secondary duty-bearers comprise everyone else except the government bodies. Their main duties are two: to make sure that the child gets the rights as prescribed, and to monitor the primary duty-bearer.

Indian perspective
In India, injustice towards children manifests in lack of access to good education, child labour, child marriage, child sex-selective abortion. Recently an NGO through a Right To Information query collected data on the child sex ratio and child birth count in the last five years and found that Tamil Nadu soon will fall behind the child sex ratio when compared to Haryana and Bihar.

How can abuse be identified?
If a child is being abused, it is possible to identify physical and mental changes or symptoms. In a recent case in Chennai, the sexual abuse of a girl child had been going on for more than seven months before things came to light, reportedly without the child showing any signs of it even to close family and friends. This is because of ‘grooming’, in which a sexual predator gains the trust of the child intending to be sexually abusive. Children thus groomed will not show any negative symptom, and may even exhibit a positive change in their appearance and behaviour as they are made to believe
that this is normal and how it has to be.

Physical abuse is highly noticeable to a teacher, so if they notice any injury on a child, they must enquire to check if it has arisen from abuse. In an anganwadi at Semmanjeri, a girl child complained of pain while using the toilet. When she was examined, the place was found to be swollen and she was taken to the Primary Health Centre where the doctor discovered that it was because of sexual abuse. In cases of emotional abuse, discrimination or neglect, such as when the child is not being fed properly or when the child is being compared to other children, the common symptom is fear. The
child may try to avoid going to school if they find a teacher to be abusive. If it’s a family member troubling the child, they may be hesitant to go back home.

Another symptom is an angry outburst from the child against his/her friends or parents or anyone. Then there is guilt. This mainly may be found in children who are being abused sexually. They will blame themselves for dressing a certain way or having gone to some place that they think they should have avoided.

Abuse can result in negative changes in the children’s attitude to people around them. There can be sudden learning difficulties which a teacher who takes care of the class must be able to observe immediately. Many a times children unable to express the real issue may try to gain attention by complaining about (imaginary) pain in parts of their body. Sometimes some children will try to inflict the abuse they have faced on other children. There can be habitual disorders when it comes to eating,
sleeping, avoiding interaction and not displaying interest in school/academic activities, depression and such. They may exhibit a risk-taking attitude as they may have gained confidence after overcoming any form of abuse by themselves. It is not necessary that a child will exhibit all or any of the above symptoms.

Grooming is another term associated with abuse. What does it mean?
To understand grooming, I can give you an example. Take the case of being active on social media. When I post a picture of myself with coolers I get more likes and comments than previously so I assume my friends and followers like me more when I’m wearing coolers and will try to continue this in all future posts. This is us unknowingly allowing others to make us do that which they want us to do. This is the first step towards grooming. Children are getting largely affected by grooming as potential abusers make them enjoy and involve themselves voluntarily in the act.

Such abuse can be identified only when a teacher openly talks and spends quality time with the children to make them aware of it, and tells them that it must be addressed by elders. It is one of the main reasons why the teacher-children ratio is recommended at 1:40, so that more individual attention can be paid to each child.

For the teachers in India, the responsibility is greater as parents are quite likely to be inadequately
educated. Even now 70 per cent of the parents in India are illiterate. We cannot expect such parents to ensure value formation and personality development because they are ill equipped. So only the teachers can be updated to teach such things to the children as they work closely with them. This is an additional moral responsibility that we teachers must carry on our shoulders.