Kerala journalist attacked over her Facebook post on child sexual abuse in madrasas

VP Rajeena, a journalist from Kerala, has become the victim of threats and abuses after she alleged that her classmates had faced sexual harassment in a madrasa years ago. 

A report by The News Minute reports that in a Facebook post, Rajeena wrote about a teacher at a Sunni madarasa in Kozhikode, who would apparently 'feel up' her male classmates’ private parts. She went on to add that the young boys were asked to unzip their pants by the ‘Ustad’ or teacher and would touch them inappropriately. Another teacher aged over 60, would also allegedly sexually abuse minor girls. Rajeena says that she was aware of such incidents throughout her six years at the madarasa.

As soon as Rajeena put up the post on Facebook, she started to receive innumerable threats and abuses on her page and in her message box. She refused to back down, saying she would remain fearless. Due to the overwhelming number of complaints filed against her, her Facebook account ended up being blocked for a while.

Rajeena believes she is being targeted because people saw her as attacking her own religion of Islam. She told The Hindu, “In this case, their intolerance to my opinion is due to the fact that I am a woman from their community. They are scared of more women speaking out. Instead of targeting me, they should try to ensure that women from the community get justice. Being silent about issues is not the solution.”