A law to keep the big, bad, known wolf at bay

Seen The White Ribbon? Film buffs might have, because it won the Palme d’Or, the jury's highest prize in 2009 at Cannes, apart from a Golden Globe and a best foreign language film nomination at the Oscars. But instead of going into the long list of accolades it garnered, what I wanted to highlight is the subtext in its subject. This Austrian-German film captures abuse in its storyline; more specifically, the abuse of children.

It is a heavy watch — in fact there is a scene which quite frankly gave me sleepless nights: a toddler boy waking up in the middle of the night to stumble upon his teenage sister being abused… by their doctor father. And the bone chilling horror of the sequence was furthered in the manner the girl, still a child herself, overlooking her own pain, comforts her scared little brother about the blood on the bed. But here’s the thing — why be numbed by the horror in a foreign film (an atrocity committed by a person in a position of trust), when statistics here, in our own country, are enough to bring on the tears?

Reports cite data from the National Crime Records Bureau, which charts an increase in sexual offences against children. In its 2007 study, 53% reported one or more forms of abuse. More worrisome: 50% of the abusers were known to the children, in effect: in a position of trust.

Watching a documentary on child abuse sometime back, I was horrified to see a rape-accused father tell the camera most unapologetically, ‘Apna hi phool hai. Hum nahin chakhenge toh aur kaun chakhega?’

It is the existence of this kind of mentality that makes the new bill that the Union cabinet cleared last Thursday, dealing exclusively with sexual offences against children both important and necessary. The new law is said to cover all aspects of sexual assault against minors not covered elsewhere. It proposes punishment of three years minimum for fondling a child in an inappropriate way. Abusers could be jailed for up to seven years as well; in fact the proposal allows for not less than 10 years with provisions to extend to life imprisonment in certain cases.

The bill proposes safeguards as to the identity of the child — it will not be disclosed. Most remarkably it provides for uncompromising punishment to those misusing their position of trust around kids.

No wonder that this bill has been described as ‘pathbreaking’ in reports. Besides, its arrival is timely, especially for Maharashtra, which, according to a non-profit group’s compilation, has the highest number of missing children in the country, apparently 13,000 in 2009. In fact, it has been reported that seven children go missing every hour in India, from the poorer sections. It would not be too off the mark to assume that many of those missing would at some point end up abused in some manner — as we all know, some in any case join the flesh trade/are sold into it. In this light alone, the bill is welcome.

Of all crimes committed, those against minors are widely regarded as most heinous. They get even more horrific, perhaps, if committed by people who are not strangers to the little ones. Little Red Riding Hood was told not to talk to strangers, (hence paid the price) as we instruct our babies, but what if the wolf is not the stranger, murky in form, deep in the woods… what if  he’s the friendly neighbourhood uncle, well known…trusted? Or, as in the case of the reported abuse of differently-abled girls in the Navi Mumbai orphanage, being highlighted at present, ostensibly in charge of their welfare?

In the hope then that this new bill will provide some measure of recourse to the victimised, whose trauma is underlined in news reports everyday. All the stories highlight not just how vulnerable the children are, but especially tell of little ones, not yet three or differently-abled, unable to even voice being abused by guardians, neighbours, kith and kin… in effect — people in positions of trust.