Child Sexual Abuse - India

Workshop - “Using the traumagenic dynamic framework when treating pre- and adolescent female victims”

2012-02-01T21:25:00.000-08:00

Tulir - Center for the Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse is organizing a workshop on “Using the traumagenic dynamic framework when treating pre- and adolescent female victims”, between Feburary 13 – 15, 2012 at Chennai.

The workshop will be in English and Please contact Tulir for the Registration form. Limited seats are available. The charges are Rs. 2000/- for the three days and includes lunch, teas and training material and will have to be paid in advance. Only local cheques and DD payable to Tulir Charitable Trust will be accepetd. Participants will have to make their own accommodation arrangements ( for which we will be able to provide guidance)

Dr. Lois J. Engelbrecht, will be the trainer. Since founding the nonprofit Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Sexual Abuse in 1993, she has helped create systems of prevention and response in the Philippines, Malaysia, China, India, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam. Read more about Dr Engelbrecht at http://www.waldenu.edu/About-Us/42022.htm

Wanted: Friendly, warm interviewers

2012-01-17T19:26:00.001-08:00

Wanted: Friendly, warm interviewers

Interview with Jennifer Anderson, associate director, CornerHouse Interagency Child Abuse Evaluation & Training Center, Minneapolis

What does ‘forensic interviewing’ entail? Forensic interviewing refers to gathering evidence from a child who is an alleged victim of abuse. A concerted effort is made to gather information about the incident in a certain way so that it is unbiased and suitable for use in court. The information is also used to assess a child’s health, welfare and safety. Research has shown that a warm and friendly interviewer elicits more accurate information than an authoritative interviewer.
What is the protocol for forensic interviewing? In general, the protocol contains elements of rapport-building. The most important thing in an interview is that it has to be child-led wherein the interviewer adapts the questions based on responses from the child.
Does your organization use a specific protocol. Yes, it involves five possible stages starting with rapport-building. Anatomy identification is the second phase where body parts inventory is done. We ask children the names they use for their body parts so that we are speaking a common language. The third phase is a touch enquiry wherein we discuss touches that they like and don’t like. If they tell us anything has occurred, it goes into the abuse scenario phase. Finally, there’s the respectable end phase where we give the child closure.
Are there gaps in the system dealing with victims of child abuse in the US? There is a dearth of training for professionals in understanding mandatory reporting. While there is a law which lays down that professionals should report a case of child sexual abuse, research shows it often goes unreported. Child sexual abuse is a taboo subject. Though, increasingly, people are accepting it, no one – say, the social worker in school – wants to believe that little Johnny is being sexually abused because it’s horrific. Sometimes, they turn a blind eye to it. We believe that if we talk about this more, we will get more reports sooner and hopefully help keep children safer.
(As told to Karthika
Gopalakrishnan)

Jennifer is the Technical Expert in Residence at Tulir currently. She will be facilitating workshops between Jan 23- 29, 2012, in Chennai

It's a trial by fire for kids

2012-01-17T19:14:00.000-08:00

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Client.asp?Daily=TOICH&showST=true&login=default&pub=TOI&Enter=true&Skin=TOINEW&AW=1326855514792

TOI, Chennai Jan. 18, 2012

Untrained Medical Examiners Add To The Ordeal Of Sexually Abused Children

Karthika Gopalakrishnan | TNN

Chennai: A four-year-old girl from Kallakurichi in Villupuram district was in the spotlight last week, with the Madras high court looking into claims of conflicting medical reports on whether she was sexually assaulted by two women teachers at her school.
    After the incident, she was first taken to a government hospital for examination, then to a private hospital followed by a third examination by another team of doctors. While it is hoped the law will take its course with regard to the accused, what becomes of the child, who was subjected to unnecessary inquiry and trauma, only because the first doctor may have got it wrong?
    This incident trains focus on the role of medical officers in handling victims of sexual abuse. According to lawyers and judicial officers, the history of the survivor, with an account of how the assault occurred — in the individual’s words — should be a part of the evidence sent by medical officers to the court.
    “Recently, we dealt with the case of a rape attempt on a 12-year-old girl. The Supreme Court has held that vaginal penetration, even to a small degree, is enough to prove a charge of rape. While the accused should have got a t e n - ye a r sentence, he got off with six years because the medical officer’s report said there was no evidence to show that sexual assault had been committed. It did not go into the victim’s history,” a judicial officer observes.
    Lawyer and activist Geeta Ramaseshan feels there should be much greater sensitivity to incidents of sexual violence. “There is huge psychological trauma that the victim has to cope with. The Supreme Court has held that testimony of the victim alone is enough to convict a person of rape, if it is found true. While medical evidence is very important, I think it is complementary to the victim’s personal evidence,” she says. Fundamentals of evidence-collection such as taking a vaginal swab or smear before cleaning up are ignored while archaic practices such as the ‘finger test’ continue to be in vogue, says Nancy Thomas of Tulir, Centre for Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse. This ‘test’ refers to a practice where the doctor notes the presence or absence of the hymen and the laxity of the vagina to determine how “habituated the woman is to sexual intercourse”.
Medico-legal expert Dr Raghavan says that no training programmes have been conducted for medical officers in the recent past. “There are sexual assault forensic evidence (SAFE) kits to ensure that evidence is collected and recorded methodically. They need to be made available at the district and taluk-level hospitals as well as primary health centres.” “We are open to conducting training programmes for medical officers but we need an agency to come forward with a proposal. Once we get a request, we can write to the government for funds,” a senior official from the health department said.
For survivors of sexual violence, the decision to undergo a medical examination is an act of courage in itself. It is hoped that with a doctor in place, who is responsive to a survivor’s immediate need for medical and psychological care, the first step in the process of putting the trauma behind them will become easier.
TIMES VIEW
    India has been still struggling to put together a legislation to deal exclusively with child sexual abuse. In the absence of such a law, the investigation and the prosecution sometimes forget that the survivor is a child whose psyche and sensibilities are different from those of an adult. As a result, for the child the process of evidence gathering and trial become experiences in reliving the trauma of the assault. Besides dealing with sexual offences against children through a special law and special courts, we should have investigation teams trained specifically to deal with such
    cases. Children, as they say, are not
    miniature adults.

Forensic interviewing workshops - child abuse investigations.

2012-01-14T21:01:00.000-08:00

To improve the response of dutybearers to allegations of child abuse, we are organizing two workshops in Chennai and in English - Basic training is for 3 days 23 - 25th Jan followed by a gap of a day and then there is the Advanced training for 3 days 27- 29th Jan. Anyone in sectors which overlap or work with child protection will find them useful. The charges are Rs 600/- a day and includes lunch, teas and training material.
About the facilitator
Jennifer Anderson, Associate Director of Corner House,( http://www.cornerhousemn.org/ ) is an expert in forensic interviewing of child witnesses. She has conducted interviews, trained others in interviewing and published articles in this field for the last nearly ten years. Her extensive experiences training professionals including cross cultural training both inside and outside the US; Of particular note is her experience training the investigators of the International Criminal Court.

CornerHouse, a public-private partnership organized as a non-profit agency , is an Interagency Child Abuse Evaluation and Training Center located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, opened in 1989.

It specializes in providing forensic interviews for children and vulnerable adults who have reported or suspected of being physically or sexually abused sexual abuse, witnessed violent crime or who may have been otherwise victimized. In 1990, CornerHouse established the first intensive five-day forensic interview training program and has since then has trained over 23,000 professionals from every Minnesota county, 49 states, and ten foreign countries including the investigators of the International Criminal Court at the Hague.

CornerHouse works with police, child protection and prosecutors to provide the highest quality and most reliable information and evidence regarding allegations of abuse.

Now…Give Your Uncle A Kiss

2012-01-06T01:18:00.000-08:00

http://thecurrentconscience.com/blog/2011/11/14/now-give-your-uncle-a-kiss/

The shocking and tragic events at Penn State that have unfolded over the past two weeks, which have exposed former assistant football coach, Jerry Sandusky, as a sexual predator, have (yet again) brought the issue of child sex abuse to the forefront of our collective consciousness.

In light of recent events, I want to discuss an issue, a behavior, that has bothered me for some time. It’s about how we encourage our kids to abandon their sense of self-trust–their instinct and intuition–in order to be polite through showing physical affection to adults.

How often, especially during the holidays, are children confronted with moments like this one: a relative comes to visit and the child’s parents say something like, “Now, give your uncle a hug and kiss.”

And when the child refuses to provide physical affection, or hesitates at the request, they sometimes hear things like, “You’re hurting your uncle’s feelings. It’s not polite. Now, go give him a hug and kiss.”

Some of us even remember our relatives asking us (some may say pleading or begging) for affection, “Aren’t you going to give me a hug and kiss? Please?!”

I think this insisting and cajoling of a child into showing physical affection towards an adult is incredibly dangerous. Whether it’s a relationship between a child and his/her relatives or one between a kid and an adult who is an acquaintance, family friend, mentor, this type of behavior, in which children are expected to show physical affection as a sign of respect, is something I think we all need to be careful about.

For me, it’s about the issue of when a child gives us the sense that they don’t want to be physically affectionate with someone, and our tendency to encourage the child, at that particular moment, to abandon their intuition and instinct. It’s a small step towards the erosion of that child’s sense of self-trust.

At that moment, we are telling them, “Forget about how you feel. Do something that makes you feel uncertain and uncomfortable, so that someone else (an adult) can feel acknowledged and respected.”

We are all built with a natural, innate inclination, a real sense of what feels right and wrong. Every species of animal is born with an instinctual drive. Unfortunately, the human species is the only one continually taught to ignore their instincts.

There is, however, a difference between intuition and instinct. Even though the words are often confused as synonyms for each other, there is a simple way to separate the two. We are all born with instinct, but intuition is built through education, living, and practice. Our intuition is linked to a keen and quick insight.

These two internal senses, intuition and instinct, make up my idea of self-trust. I see self-trust as related to trusting your reactions, your feelings about people, circumstances, and decisions. I see self-trust as the most authentic reactions and feelings.

I acknowledge that some kids are just being difficult, but it’s not about their motivation so much as it is about our reaction. At that moment, we initiate a process where we require boys and girls to have physical interaction when they don’t want to and at that moment, we also tell them to ignore their sense of self-trust. We are teaching kids that adults are in charge of who they should be and are affectionate with. We are telling them that they don’t have the right or power to make their own decisions about human, physical interaction.

Again, it’s the little moments that create a big collective weight over time.

But my point is, no one has the right to receive affection, especially from a child. It’s not part of normal, polite interactions. It’s extra. When we ask kids to offer physical signs of affection, a hug or a kiss may seem innocuous enough to us, as adults.

Can you imagine asking, or expecting an adult to hug and kiss another adult, as a way to show acknowledgement or respect? Normally, we wouldn’t encourage two adults to have that sort of interaction because we all have a sense of what kinds of physical affection are appropriate in a given circumstance. We have a sense of what we feel comfortable with and we react according to our gut.

Why can’t we allow children to tap into this same instinctive, internal sense?

This doesn’t mean I think we should live in a society without affection. To the contrary.

But the idea that a child can be guilt-tripped or cajoled into affection is disgusting to me. It’s not a light-hearted or funny moment, it’s sad. At that moment, we are telling that child to give their physical selves in order to appease us adults, for reasons that they don’t fully understand or appreciate. Our motivation, whether it’s social embarrassment or a desire to connect with the child, puts us first, rather than thinking of them first…as it should be.

When it comes to acknowledging other people, the most we can expect from children is for them to politely and verbally greet adults. And as far as I’m concerned, anything else, is expecting too much and is patently unfair.

Some may say that this way of handling interaction between adults and children will build up cynicism in kids, will rob them of their innocent childhood, and will make them overly cautious of adults–or even teach them to be aloof.

Well, our childhoods have never been innocent (now or ever). One out of every four girls and one of out of every six boys will face sexual abuse before their 18th birthday. We only have to look at the numbers to understand that for many kids, there have never been bright, sunny childhoods.

For much too long, they have been filled with silent moments of sexual abuse, we just haven’t discussed them. They have been hidden away, just like the victims of Jerry Sandusky. It’s only when we shatter this myth of a childhood era of innocence that we can begin to understand what children truly face.

Sexual abuse completely revamps the blueprint of the victim’s life. Their worldview shifts, the way they process trust, how they build relationships, their sense of safety, are all permanently altered.

So, I think I’d much rather have our children be slightly cynical and aware, to encourage them to follow their sense of self-trust, and as a result, to give them a better chance at protecting themselves, than to insist that kids must show physical affection when they don’t feel comfortable.

After all, it’s not like we’ve done our part to protect our kids, not at all. And if we have any doubt about that, all we have to do is think about Mike McQueary, looking on as that poor boy was raped in the locker room shower at Penn State.

Seminar - Crimes against children - NAVIGATING THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM (CJS)

2012-01-02T02:37:00.000-08:00

With the multi disciplinary team approach increasingly being recognized as most effective in addressing crimes against children, it is important that NGO’s are also well equipped to work on cases holistically, with other team members integral to legal redress. Besides, a better understanding of the various issues related to engaging with the Criminal Justice System (CJS) in responding to sexual violence, it is also critical to their effective support of child victims. Furthermore since many NGO’s are also involved in training various stakeholders, they need to be familiar with navigating the labyrinth of the CJS.

To this end, Tulir – Centre for the Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse with Tamil Nadu Police Academy and Police Training College is organizing a one day seminar NAVIGATING THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM (CJS) on January 10, 2012 in Chennai and look forward to your organization’s participation. Further details - venue, timing etc., - will be intimidated after pre registration on a first come first serve basis. ( Pls write to preventcsa@gmail.com for form) with participation being limited to 50 persons.

Smart ways to be safe

2011-12-10T03:17:00.000-08:00

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/article2696839.ece

Dealing with child sexual abuse

Special Correspondent

Share · print · T+

Boards installed in all Chennai Schools, carrying messages for students

RAISING AWARENESS: Children of Chennai Middle School, Arumbakkam, take a look at the messages on personal safety in Chennai on Wednesday. — Photo: K. Pichumani.

“Yes, we know what that means,” said the group of class VIII students of Chennai Middle School, Arumbakkam, in chorus. They were responding to a question whether they knew what sexual abuse meant.

The interaction between them and Nancy of Tulir - Centre for the Prevention and Healing Child Sexual Abuse, an NGO, on Wednesday highlighted their keen interest in their safety. Students seemed to have heard of instances of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) as well. “Even two days ago, the newspaper had a report on a small girl having been sexually abused,” said one of the students.

Having oriented themselves to ideas of personal safety and prevention of CSA by reading a board that Tulir, with the support of UNICEF and Chennai Corporation, has put up in the School, the students were prompt in their responses on how to say no or tell an adult they trust when someone makes them feel uncomfortable.

Such boards have been installed in all Chennai Middle, High and Higher Secondary Schools. It speaks of aspects such as private parts, how people hug, about accepting gifts, about reporting cases of known or unknown adults sexually abusing them, saying no when they want to, running away from the spot and telling an adult. It also has a final reassuring message stating ‘No, it is not your fault'. The messages in simple, conversational Tamil are aimed at reaching the student-reader.

T.N.Venkatesh, Joint Commissioner (Education), Chennai Corporation, told students that it was important for them, as adolescents, to be aware of their safety. “Keep yourself updated about current affairs. Read newspapers, come and talk to your friends,” he said.

Private schools

Vidya Reddy of Tulir, who has been working with the Chennai Corporation for over five years to raise awareness among children in its schools, said the civic body had been very receptive to the idea. “These schools realise the need for awareness of the issue and have been enthusiastic partners,” she said.

However, private schools show little interest in raising awareness of the issue among their students, Ms. Reddy added. “They do not see the importance of such a programme. One parent who requested the management to put up one of these posters was told that they had no time for this. Such is their indifference. Is it not important to make children in private schools also aware of the issue? It is a fundamental lesson in personal safety,” she said.

Aruna Rathnam, Education Specialist, UNICEF, urged boys also to confide in parents or teachers if anyone abused them. “Do not think that you will be ridiculed for being afraid.” D. Jayalakshmni, headmistress of the school, also spoke.

Lights, Camera, Conversation… “The other side of happily-ever-after”

2011-12-10T03:11:00.000-08:00

http://baradwajrangan.wordpress.com/2011/12/09/the-other-side-of-happily-ever-after/

Lights, Camera, Conversation… “The other side of happily-ever-after”

Posted on December 9, 2011

Films on subjects that make us sick to the stomach aren’t easy to watch, but then spinach doesn’t taste like sorbet either.
I was asked, recently, to view two films – David Schwimmer’s Trust and Nicole Kassell’s The Woodsman – that dealt, in their own ways, with the very troubling reality of child sexual abuse, troubling to watch, definitely, but also to screen for an audience. The authorities that govern these matters, those gods of small things, needed letters from critics and other people associated with the movie industry stating that these films carried no objectionable content and could therefore be screened before a public weaned on movies where the sisters of heroes were regularly raped, where the heroines routinely wore white saris thin as tissue paper and positioned themselves under drooling rain machines, and where even heroes, those paragons of white virtue, harassed the women they loved in a sexist sport that now bears the name eve teasing. In contrast, Trust and The Woodsman only sound horrifying. We don’t actually see anything objectionable except in the mind’s eye, which is actually worse because the many individually imagined horrors twine into a stout whiplash. That, of course, is the point.

But this queasiness on the part of the authorities isn’t surprising, perhaps even understandable – there are children involved, and even our most perverse filmmakers haven’t ventured into that minefield. It’s one thing to sneak sex into wholesome family films, and entirely another to make a film about sex, the worst kind of sex. This is the other troubling reality – who’d want to watch these films? Why would anyone, even the kind of popcorn-averse viewer inclined towards difficult dramas about homosexual priests or Jews under Hitler, propel himself to the theatre to experience, in Trust, a teenaged girl’s loss of innocence at the bear-hands of a married, middle-aged man, and her father’s subsequent anguish, his helplessness, at not being able to protect his little girl? The performances are so transparent, so revelatory, especially by the girl and the father (Liana Liberato and Clive Owen) that the screen – the small screen, in my case – seems to melt away. We’re inside these lives, and that’s a terrible place to be.
The Woodsman pulls off the not-insignificant feat of being far more troubling. At least in Trust, the targets of our love-hate responses are clearly aligned – we want the girl to return to normalcy, to the extent she can, and we want the molester to time-travel back to a certain period in France so that his private parts can come under the guillotine. Victim and victimiser couldn’t be more explicitly demarcated if the director, the former Ross Geller from Friends, gave the girl wings and a halo and the man a pitchfork and a pair of horns. But in The Woodsman, the molester is the victim, and he’s played by Kevin Bacon, an actor we’ve had a long relationship with, an actor we like seeing on screen. The film, therefore, divides us into the half that hates what the character has done (sitting on a park bench eyeing little girls with bad intent, like in the Jethro Tull song) and the half that wants good things to happen to him, nevertheless, because he’s played by this good actor.
The Woodsman isn’t all that it could have been – the eponymous metaphor, as explained, is especially clumsy, harking back to Red Riding Hood, and a love affair that redeems the protagonist is a little too convenient – but by complicating our emotions, the film reflects the complications of life. Trust, too, refuses to take the easy way out by making the victim a sacred lamb. Like any adolescent, the girl is curious about sex to an extent that shocks her father. It’s no surprise, then, that neither film made a dent at the box office, despite decent reviews. But perhaps those who did not want to subject themselves to this unpleasantness in theatres, at the end of a workday’s toil, will discover these films in private screenings or in the privacy of their homes, and expose themselves to the dangers that lurk around their young children. They need to. You can choose not to look at something dirty and ugly, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there or that you can wish it away, like in a fairy tale, and live happily ever after.
Lights, Camera, Conversation… is a weekly dose of cud-chewing over what Satyajit Ray called Our Films Their Films. An edited version of this piece can be found here.
Copyright ©2011 The Hindu. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.

Driving home the point

2011-11-24T06:51:00.000-08:00

Display on Bus Panels has resulted in a spate of calls to Tulir - ranging from curiosity to information seeking to catharisizing to requests for help.

Personal safety awareness for visually impaired children

2011-11-20T02:54:00.000-08:00

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/article2634472.ece

Turn up the Volume

2011-11-20T02:37:00.000-08:00

Turn up the volume! Thanks to all radio stations featured here for the programming to create/increase awareness against child sexual absue . It sure helps break the silence

It takes a community to protect a child

2011-11-20T01:39:00.000-08:00

Thanks NDTV-Hindu for supporting efforts to create/increase awareness against child sexual abuse. PSA's created by wearechildren were aired today as well as anchors wore the yellow bow - a symbolic show of solidarity for prevention against child abuse

Does anything more to be said?

2011-11-18T10:51:00.000-08:00

Secrets about touching need to be told

2011-11-15T01:55:00.000-08:00

Our latest poster/flier which The Hindu very kindly published in the Young World supplement today

Launch of awareness flier for the visually impaired

2011-11-12T22:07:00.000-08:00

Although all children are at possible risk of being sexually abused, the social exclusion of children with disabilities together with their increased dependency makes them especially vulnerable.
A common misconception is that individuals with disabilities are asexual and are not at risk for sexual abuse and cannot benefit from abuse prevention education. Also in an effort to “protect” the child, many children with disabilities have never received correct information or education about abuse prevention, sexuality and self-protection or personal safety strategies or been provided education on ways to develop and maintain healthy, respectful and supportive relationships.
Furthermore many individuals with disabilities are taught in school, through caregivers and family members to do as they are told, to comply with requests of others, and to control difficult behaviors. They are not taught about boundaries, assertiveness, or the right to say no – especially to authority figures – to painful or other unwanted touches. Compliance training can make the individual vulnerable to abuse or exploitation.
Children with disabilities deserve the right to personal safety as well as to learn strategies to protect themselves, education and training efforts that include sexuality awareness, violence and abuse prevention and assertiveness training help to prevent abuse.

Tulir - Centre for the Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse and Vidya Sagar - an organization working with disability, invites you to the launch of the Braille version of an awareness flier on personal safety - “ Smart Ways To Keep Myself Safe”

Mrs Kannegi Packianthan, IAS, Secretary, Welfare of Differently Abled Persons, Govt. of Tamil Nadu, will preside

Date: 16^th November 2011

Time: 4.00 pm – 5.00pm

Venue: Thomas Rajan Auditorium, Vidya Sagar

No:1, Ranjith Road

Kotturpuram

Chennai – 600 085
Further reading
http://www.handicap-international.org.uk/resources/latest_news/publications/110930_report_violence
http://cirinc.org/catta/wp-content/plugins/downloads-manager/upload/FactSheet.pdf
http://vawnet.org/Assoc_Files_VAWnet/NRC_KTSafe-full.pdf

Nov 19 efforts snowballing!

2011-11-05T05:29:00.000-07:00

http://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/society/article2600496.ece

Published: November 5, 2011 11:17 IST | Updated: November 5, 2011 11:17 IST

A project for child safety

Pankaja Sreenivasan

A MESSAGE: Members of Tirupur Ladies Circle No.44 display campaign material on child sex abuse they use as part of the sensitisation drive taken up in the industrial areas of Tirupur city.

Breaking silence over child abuse will give people courage to stop it

The Tirupur Ladies Circle launched ‘Dare To Care,' a project for child safety on November 2. While Children's Day falls on November 14, it is November 19 that marks the World Day for Prevention of Abuse and Violence against Children. The Tirupur Ladies Circle has dedicated itself to this cause.

It has planned a year long campaign to raise awareness on this issue in factories, schools and in public places. It will ensure that the silence that shrouds child abuse is broken and the subject is discussed in as many platforms as possible. Archana Dange, who through her resource centre Anand Deep Enterprises raises awareness about preventing Child Sexual Abuse. “Breaking the silence over child abuse will give people the courage to ensure that the abuse stops and does not recur. If we know about it, we can reach out and help instead of looking the other way.”

The programme was launched on the premises of Century Apparels. There were posters in English, Tamil, and Hindi in every section of the factory urging the people not to abuse children or tolerate anyone else abusing them. “It takes a community to protect a child,” said the posters. Information on the nature of Child Sexual Abuse was also put up. A workshop was held for the senior staff and management. Two films on the subject were screened and that was followed by a discussion on how child abuse cases were prevalent in all strata of society. The management of Century Apparels has agreed to put slogans and messages to raise awareness about Child Abuse on the rear of their staff transport buses. There will also be a worker awareness workshop shortly.

Ms. Aditi Rao, national president, Ladies Circle India, inaugurated the programme. She said the campaign should spread further than Tirupur. She expressed the hope that the Ladies Circle Chapters in every city would initiate and promote awareness on this subject. Ms. Vidhya Sudan, chairperson, Ladies Circle Tirupur assured her that they would do all they could to take the initiative to a national level.

The education materials that were distributed at the launch were procured from Tulir, a Chennai-based organisation that works in the field of Child Sexual Abuse Prevention.

Keywords: child safety, child abuse

Of Evil Benovelence

2011-08-21T09:28:00.000-07:00

Being a volunteer with an NGO is the most preffered route for TSO's in India.A recent example is pasted below. One possible check and balance would be to ask visa applicants to India about any previous criminal charges they have, like many countries do but india currently does not.

http://www.dailypioneer.com/362315/Case-against-British-child-abuser;-cops-rescue-teen.html

Case against British child abuser; cops rescue teen

August 21, 2011 1:10:47 AM

PNS
Chennai

Yet again, Tamil Nadu is troubled by foreign paedophiles, this time a British national in the Tirunelveli district, close to Kanyakumari.

The police slapped a case against 65-year-old Jonathan Robinson after rescuing a 15-year-old from a childcare home in Chinnammalpuram village in Valliyoor. A case was registered against Robinson under Section 377 (unnatural sex) of IPC, following a complaint by Bangalore-based social worker Singaram, added police sources.

However, Robinson has been absconding and the police has already alerted the UK police and sought its help.

Robinson was funding the home, with 33 inmates (aged between 2 years and teenagers) run by the Grail Trust. Police said the Trust was also being investigated and if necessary, a case would be registered against it too.

The boy told the police that Robinson had tried to take him abroad, but was denied a visa. He was recently taken to Shimla for a few days. He added that Robinson had fled to Germany.

After contacting the UK police, Robinson’s whereabouts was traced to the US. Police are confident of nabbing him as the UK police have strict laws against paedophiles. Interpol could also be alerted to track him if necessary.

The rescued boy has been entrusted to the district Child Welfare Committee’s reception unit Saranalayam. In the last seven to eight months, the boy was abused several times and this has been going on for a few years.

The police are trying to ascertain if other children have faced abuse, though there has been no other complaint.

This not the first case of child sex abuse to rock Tamil Nadu. The famous case has been that of the Dutch national William Heum (56) who was in May sentenced to 25 years of imprisonment for child molestation.

Heum was a habitual offender who was first booked in 2002 and has been in and out on bail. He was also booked for sodomy after his orphanage ‘Little Home’ in Mamallapuram was busted. He had molested 40 inmates of his orphanage.

He somehow managed to stay out of prison and delayed trial. But in 2009 the Interpol identified him for uploading child pornography from Chennai.

Another paedophile, Eric Martin, a French national, was also arrested last November.

It takes a community and Scooby Doo's to protect a child

2011-05-24T05:06:00.000-07:00

My colleagues and I partnered with an Indian NGO Tulir (www.tulir.org) - Center for the Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse. We have successfully raised funds to help produce an educational animated film focusing on the topic of child sexual abuse. The film will be produced in three languages targeting over 100,000 children across India.

To support this initiative, 8 of us participated in the JP Morgan run in Singapore on April 21. Dressed as Scooby Doo & Friends characters we raised money from colleagues across offices who generously donated over S$10,000 to help this project.

Talkathon to address child sexual absue

2011-04-24T03:53:00.000-07:00

TAALK will host a 24 hour internet radio show with guest speakers each hour covering a variety of topics related to child sexual abuse awareness, prevention and support. Hear 60+ speakers from around the world. For more details click on
http://www.taalk.org/TAALK-A-THON

3:00 a.m. - 4:00 a.m. April 30th It Can Only Get Better: Addressing Child Sexual Abuse in India

India’s huge population, vast demographic differences and socio cultural complexities present challenges to addressing child sexual abuse. Get an insight and be inspired by four professionals from varied backgrounds who are breaking off chunks from the rock of denial, diffidence, ignorance and paranoia which epitomize the context.

Safe Schools

2011-02-15T05:27:00.000-08:00

A vindication that if a child knows that the people around her/him are not in denial about unsafe touch, then that child has the confidence to disclose/discuss any confusion they may have about an uncomfortable situation - the first step to building a congenial environment towards protecting children.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Anti-child-sex-abuse-boards-in-corporation-schools-prove-effective/articleshow/7498013.cms

Anti-child sex abuse boards in corporation schools prove effective

Revathi Ramanan, TNN, Feb 15, 2011, 06.45am IST

CHENNAI: Measures taken by Chennai Corporation schools to tackle child sex abuse have proven to be effective with more children coming forward and telling teachers about incidents of abuse faced by them. Even as these schools have woken up to reality and taken preventive steps to tackle it by prominently displaying boards which tell children about safe and unsafe touches, private schools in the city are yet to take any proactive measures.
The boards, which have been put in a prominent place in all the corporation-run schools, are an initiative of Tulir, an organisation working for prevention and healing of child sexual abuse in India, and the Chennai Corporation. They have been jointly funded by the UNICEF and Tulir. "The boards have very simple messages for the children about what to do in case they face abuse and are not explicit in nature. Child abuse is highly prevalent in the society and more schools need to come forward and take initiatives to fight this menace," said Vidya Reddy of Tulir. She added that while corporation schools had been proactive and allowed the boards to displayed on their premises, no private school had approached them yet.

"Most private schools think that if such boards are displayed on the premises, parents would take it as a sign that child abuse was prevalent in the school. This is an absurd line of thought and schools need to be proactive in fighting abuse rather than being sorry later," she said.
Private schools, however, said that they were not averse to the idea of displaying boards on the campus but they already had systems in place to deal with child sex abuse. "We have counsellors at all levels who the children can go and talk to when they face abuse," said Geetha Ramasubramanian, principal of Valiammal Matriculation Higher Secondary school.
Corporation schools said the boards have helped children come out and talk about their problems. "After they were put up, we have had a lot of children who work as domestic helps in homes, telling us about incidents of abuse. They read the board and realise that it is not something to feel ashamed about and are more open about it," said G Vasanthi, a corporation school teacher.
She added that after the boards were put up, children were coming forward and telling teachers not only about problems related to abuse but also eve teasing and general harassment. "A couple of years ago, if a parent came to know that a girl child was suffering from abuse, they would stop her education. Now they come forward for help," she said.

Cyclone against Child Sexual Abuse

2011-02-08T04:26:00.000-08:00

http://www.indiaeducationdiary.in/showEE.asp?newsid=7628

CII- Young Indians Cycle Rally against 'Child Sexual Abuse in Chennai

Monday, January 31, 2011

Chennai: The Young Indians (Yi) of CII organised a Cycle Rally in Chennai on 30 January 2011 with an aim to create awareness on 'Child Sexual Abuse'. The cycle rally was participated by over 200 students from various schools in Chennai City.
Actor Mr Karthi Sivakumar, flagged off the rally at Thiru Vi Ka Park in Shenoy Nagar, Chennai which ended at Bhavan's Rajaji Vidyashram, Kilpauk, Chennai covering a length of 10 KMs.
Earlier, Mr Karthi Sivakumar addressed the school students on the issue of Child Sexual Abuse and said that these kinds of awareness campaigns involving student community would empower them to face any challenges with respect to the issue of child sexual abuse.

Ms Deepa Sathiaram, Chairperson, Yi Chennai; Mr Anantharaman Mani, Student Nets Chairman, Yi Chennai and Mr Prasanna, Co-Chair, Yi-Chennai also participated in the cycle rally.

Online campaign against child sexual abuse

2011-02-04T03:17:00.000-08:00

Brilliantly concieved by wearechildren.org

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rB5aNL19w4

The Orange Book - A Teachers’ Workbook on Sexuality

2011-01-09T23:27:00.000-08:00

The Orange Book
A Teachers’ Workbook on Sexuality

Teachers have revealed their doubts and anxieties about teaching sexuality education in school. They say, ‘These are such taboo topics, such sensitive issues – when we have hardly spoken about these issues ourselves, how can anyone expect us to talk about these with our students?’ This is a legitimate and fair question. With the Adolescence Education Programme being implemented in certain institutions, most schools and teachers will not be able to ignore these issues. Expecting teachers to take on the mantle of becoming Sexuality Educators with little preparation or scope to explore their own doubts and feelings about these issues may be too tall an order.

The Orange Book : A Teachers’ Workbook on Sexuality Education is a workbook with 28 exercises on imparting sexuality education with confidence, ease and élan.

Contact Tarshi to request for copies of the book. Schools and teachers are encouraged to request for multiple copies at discounted rates.

http://www.tarshi.net/publications/publications_sexuality_education.asp

Bill Zeller

2011-01-07T04:55:00.000-08:00

http://gizmodo.com/5726667/the-agonizing-last-words-of-bill-zeller

The Agonizing Last Words of Programmer Bill Zeller

Bill Zeller was a talented programmer whose work we've featured on Lifehacker. He took his own life on Sunday and left an explanation that I think it's important you read.

Zeller was a victim of sexual and psychological abuse. It's clear from his writing that the abuse left him unable to interface with the world in any way that didn't leave him feeling he was too sullied to have the same experiences that he thought others had. He had a self-described "darkness", which despite his prostration it's clear he handled more ably than perhaps he ever realized.

Programming was a solace, but only temporarily. Zeller never felt he could escape the things that had happened to him because he carried his torment with him everywhere.

I think a person has the right to live or end their life as they choose. If Zeller really felt that suicide was his only option, so be it. But as someone who has had similar experiences in my own life, I want to say to anyone else who feels the way Zeller felt: You can't escape your past. Not completely. But you can deal with it. You can contextualize it. You can learn how to prepare for the times when you feel like it's not even on your radar and then it totally broadsides you.

And you can talk to people. You really can.

Bill Zeller

I have the urge to declare my sanity and justify my actions, but I assume I'll never be able to convince anyone that this was the right decision. Maybe it's true that anyone who does this is insane by definition, but I can at least explain my reasoning. I considered not writing any of this because of how personal it is, but I like tying up loose ends and don't want people to wonder why I did this. Since I've never spoken to anyone about what happened to me, people would likely draw the wrong conclusions.

My first memories as a child are of being raped, repeatedly. This has affected every aspect of my life. This darkness, which is the only way I can describe it, has followed me like a fog, but at times intensified and overwhelmed me, usually triggered by a distinct situation. In kindergarten I couldn't use the bathroom and would stand petrified whenever I needed to, which started a trend of awkward and unexplained social behavior. The damage that was done to my body still prevents me from using the bathroom normally, but now it's less of a physical impediment than a daily reminder of what was done to me.

This darkness followed me as I grew up. I remember spending hours playing with legos, having my world consist of me and a box of cold, plastic blocks. Just waiting for everything to end. It's the same thing I do now, but instead of legos it's surfing the web or reading or listening to a baseball game. Most of my life has been spent feeling dead inside, waiting for my body to catch up.

At times growing up I would feel inconsolable rage, but I never connected this to what happened until puberty. I was able to keep the darkness at bay for a few hours at a time by doing things that required intense concentration, but it would always come back. Programming appealed to me for this reason. I was never particularly fond of computers or mathematically inclined, but the temporary peace it would provide was like a drug. But the darkness always returned and built up something like a tolerance, because programming has become less and less of a refuge.

The darkness is with me nearly every time I wake up. I feel like a grime is covering me. I feel like I'm trapped in a contimated body that no amount of washing will clean. Whenever I think about what happened I feel manic and itchy and can't concentrate on anything else. It manifests itself in hours of eating or staying up for days at a time or sleeping for sixteen hours straight or week long programming binges or constantly going to the gym. I'm exhausted from feeling like this every hour of every day.

Three to four nights a week I have nightmares about what happened. It makes me avoid sleep and constantly tired, because sleeping with what feels like hours of nightmares is not restful. I wake up sweaty and furious. I'm reminded every morning of what was done to me and the control it has over my life.

I've never been able to stop thinking about what happened to me and this hampered my social interactions. I would be angry and lost in thought and then be interrupted by someone saying "Hi" or making small talk, unable to understand why I seemed cold and distant. I walked around, viewing the outside world from a distant portal behind my eyes, unable to perform normal human niceties. I wondered what it would be like to take to other people without what happened constantly on my mind, and I wondered if other people had similar experiences that they were better able to mask.

Alcohol was also something that let me escape the darkness. It would always find me later, though, and it was always angry that I managed to escape and it made me pay. Many of the irresponsible things I did were the result of the darkness. Obviously I'm responsible for every decision and action, including this one, but there are reasons why things happen the way they do.

Alcohol and other drugs provided a way to ignore the realities of my situation. It was easy to spend the night drinking and forget that I had no future to look forward to. I never liked what alcohol did to me, but it was better than facing my existence honestly. I haven't touched alcohol or any other drug in over seven months (and no drugs or alcohol will be involved when I do this) and this has forced me to evaluate my life in an honest and clear way. There's no future here. The darkness will always be with me.

I used to think if I solved some problem or achieved some goal, maybe he would leave. It was comforting to identify tangible issues as the source of my problems instead of something that I'll never be able to change. I thought that if I got into to a good college, or a good grad school, or lost weight, or went to the gym nearly every day for a year, or created programs that millions of people used, or spent a summer or California or New York or published papers that I was proud of, then maybe I would feel some peace and not be constantly haunted and unhappy. But nothing I did made a dent in how depressed I was on a daily basis and nothing was in any way fulfilling. I'm not sure why I ever thought that would change anything.

I didn't realize how deep a hold he had on me and my life until my first relationship. I stupidly assumed that no matter how the darkness affected me personally, my romantic relationships would somehow be separated and protected. Growing up I viewed my future relationships as a possible escape from this thing that haunts me every day, but I began to realize how entangled it was with every aspect of my life and how it is never going to release me. Instead of being an escape, relationships and romantic contact with other people only intensified everything about him that I couldn't stand. I will never be able to have a relationship in which he is not the focus, affecting every aspect of my romantic interactions.

Relationships always started out fine and I'd be able to ignore him for a few weeks. But as we got closer emotionally the darkness would return and every night it'd be me, her and the darkness in a black and gruesome threesome. He would surround me and penetrate me and the more we did the more intense it became. It made me hate being touched, because as long as we were separated I could view her like an outsider viewing something good and kind and untainted. Once we touched, the darkness would envelope her too and take her over and the evil inside me would surround her. I always felt like I was infecting anyone I was with.

Relationships didn't work. No one I dated was the right match, and I thought that maybe if I found the right person it would overwhelm him. Part of me knew that finding the right person wouldn't help, so I became interested in girls who obviously had no interest in me. For a while I thought I was gay. I convinced myself that it wasn't the darkness at all, but rather my orientation, because this would give me control over why things didn't feel "right". The fact that the darkness affected sexual matters most intensely made this idea make some sense and I convinced myself of this for a number of years, starting in college after my first relationship ended. I told people I was gay (at Trinity, not at Princeton), even though I wasn't attracted to men and kept finding myself interested in girls. Because if being gay wasn't the answer, then what was? People thought I was avoiding my orientation, but I was actually avoiding the truth, which is that while I'm straight, I will never be content with anyone. I know now that the darkness will never leave.

Last spring I met someone who was unlike anyone else I'd ever met. Someone who showed me just how well two people could get along and how much I could care about another human being. Someone I know I could be with and love for the rest of my life, if I weren't so fucked up. Amazingly, she liked me. She liked the shell of the man the darkness had left behind. But it didn't matter because I couldn't be alone with her. It was never just the two of us, it was always the three of us: her, me and the darkness. The closer we got, the more intensely I'd feel the darkness, like some evil mirror of my emotions. All the closeness we had and I loved was complemented by agony that I couldn't stand, from him. I realized that I would never be able to give her, or anyone, all of me or only me. She could never have me without the darkness and evil inside me. I could never have just her, without the darkness being a part of all of our interactions. I will never be able to be at peace or content or in a healthy relationship. I realized the futility of the romantic part of my life. If I had never met her, I would have realized this as soon as I met someone else who I meshed similarly well with. It's likely that things wouldn't have worked out with her and we would have broken up (with our relationship ending, like the majority of relationships do) even if I didn't have this problem, since we only dated for a short time. But I will face exactly the same problems with the darkness with anyone else. Despite my hopes, love and compatability is not enough. Nothing is enough. There's no way I can fix this or even push the darkness down far enough to make a relationship or any type of intimacy feasible.

So I watched as things fell apart between us. I had put an explicit time limit on our relationship, since I knew it couldn't last because of the darkness and didn't want to hold her back, and this caused a variety of problems. She was put in an unnatural situation that she never should have been a part of. It must have been very hard for her, not knowing what was actually going on with me, but this is not something I've ever been able to talk about with anyone. Losing her was very hard for me as well. Not because of her (I got over our relationship relatively quickly), but because of the realization that I would never have another relationship and because it signified the last true, exclusive personal connection I could ever have. This wasn't apparent to other people, because I could never talk about the real reasons for my sadness. I was very sad in the summer and fall, but it was not because of her, it was because I will never escape the darkness with anyone. She was so loving and kind to me and gave me everything I could have asked for under the circumstances. I'll never forget how much happiness she brought me in those briefs moments when I could ignore the darkness. I had originally planned to kill myself last winter but never got around to it. (Parts of this letter were written over a year ago, other parts days before doing this.) It was wrong of me to involve myself in her life if this were a possibility and I should have just left her alone, even though we only dated for a few months and things ended a long time ago. She's just one more person in a long list of people I've hurt.

I could spend pages talking about the other relationships I've had that were ruined because of my problems and my confusion related to the darkness. I've hurt so many great people because of who I am and my inability to experience what needs to be experienced. All I can say is that I tried to be honest with people about what I thought was true.

I've spent my life hurting people. Today will be the last time.

I've told different people a lot of things, but I've never told anyone about what happened to me, ever, for obvious reasons. It took me a while to realize that no matter how close you are to someone or how much they claim to love you, people simply cannot keep secrets. I learned this a few years ago when I thought I was gay and told people. The more harmful the secret, the juicier the gossip and the more likely you are to be betrayed. People don't care about their word or what they've promised, they just do whatever the fuck they want and justify it later. It feels incredibly lonely to realize you can never share something with someone and have it be between just the two of you. I don't blame anyone in particular, I guess it's just how people are. Even if I felt like this is something I could have shared, I have no interest in being part of a friendship or relationship where the other person views me as the damaged and contaminated person that I am. So even if I were able to trust someone, I probably would not have told them about what happened to me. At this point I simply don't care who knows.

I feel an evil inside me. An evil that makes me want to end life. I need to stop this. I need to make sure I don't kill someone, which is not something that can be easily undone. I don't know if this is related to what happened to me or something different. I recognize the irony of killing myself to prevent myself from killing someone else, but this decision should indicate what I'm capable of.

So I've realized I will never escape the darkness or misery associated with it and I have a responsibility to stop myself from physically harming others.

I'm just a broken, miserable shell of a human being. Being molested has defined me as a person and shaped me as a human being and it has made me the monster I am and there's nothing I can do to escape it. I don't know any other existence. I don't know what life feels like where I'm apart from any of this. I actively despise the person I am. I just feel fundamentally broken, almost non-human. I feel like an animal that woke up one day in a human body, trying to make sense of a foreign world, living among creatures it doesn't understand and can't connect with.

I have accepted that the darkness will never allow me to be in a relationship. I will never go to sleep with someone in my arms, feeling the comfort of their hands around me. I will never know what uncontimated intimacy is like. I will never have an exclusive bond with someone, someone who can be the recipient of all the love I have to give. I will never have children, and I wanted to be a father so badly. I think I would have made a good dad. And even if I had fought through the darkness and married and had children all while being unable to feel intimacy, I could have never done that if suicide were a possibility. I did try to minimize pain, although I know that this decision will hurt many of you. If this hurts you, I hope that you can at least forget about me quickly.

There's no point in identifying who molested me, so I'm just going to leave it at that. I doubt the word of a dead guy with no evidence about something that happened over twenty years ago would have much sway.

You may wonder why I didn't just talk to a professional about this. I've seen a number of doctors since I was a teenager to talk about other issues and I'm positive that another doctor would not have helped. I was never given one piece of actionable advice, ever. More than a few spent a large part of the session reading their notes to remember who I was. And I have no interest in talking about being raped as a child, both because I know it wouldn't help and because I have no confidence it would remain secret. I know the legal and practical limits of doctor/patient confidentiality, growing up in a house where we'd hear stories about the various mental illnesses of famous people, stories that were passed down through generations. All it takes is one doctor who thinks my story is interesting enough to share or a doctor who thinks it's her right or responsibility to contact the authorities and have me identify the molestor (justifying her decision by telling herself that someone else might be in danger). All it takes is a single doctor who violates my trust, just like the "friends" who I told I was gay did, and everything would be made public and I'd be forced to live in a world where people would know how fucked up I am. And yes, I realize this indicates that I have severe trust issues, but they're based on a large number of experiences with people who have shown a profound disrepect for their word and the privacy of others.

People say suicide is selfish. I think it's selfish to ask people to continue living painful and miserable lives, just so you possibly won't feel sad for a week or two. Suicide may be a permanent solution to a temporary problem, but it's also a permanent solution to a ~23 year-old problem that grows more intense and overwhelming every day.

Some people are just dealt bad hands in this life. I know many people have it worse than I do, and maybe I'm just not a strong person, but I really did try to deal with this. I've tried to deal with this every day for the last 23 years and I just can't fucking take it anymore.

I often wonder what life must be like for other people. People who can feel the love from others and give it back unadulterated, people who can experience sex as an intimate and joyous experience, people who can experience the colors and happenings of this world without constant misery. I wonder who I'd be if things had been different or if I were a stronger person. It sounds pretty great.

I'm prepared for death. I'm prepared for the pain and I am ready to no longer exist. Thanks to the strictness of New Jersey gun laws this will probably be much more painful than it needs to be, but what can you do. My only fear at this point is messing something up and surviving.

I'd also like to address my family, if you can call them that. I despise everything they stand for and I truly hate them, in a non-emotional, dispassionate and what I believe is a healthy way. The world will be a better place when they're dead—one with less hatred and intolerance.

If you're unfamiliar with the situation, my parents are fundamentalist Christians who kicked me out of their house and cut me off financially when I was 19 because I refused to attend seven hours of church a week.

They live in a black and white reality they've constructed for themselves. They partition the world into good and evil and survive by hating everything they fear or misunderstand and calling it love. They don't understand that good and decent people exist all around us, "saved" or not, and that evil and cruel people occupy a large percentage of their church. They take advantage of people looking for hope by teaching them to practice the same hatred they practice.

A random example:

"I am personally convinced that if a Muslim truly believes and obeys the Koran, he will be a terrorist." - George Zeller, August 24, 2010.

If you choose to follow a religion where, for example, devout Catholics who are trying to be good people are all going to Hell but child molestors go to Heaven (as long as they were "saved" at some point), that's your choice, but it's fucked up. Maybe a God who operates by those rules does exist. If so, fuck Him.

Their church was always more important than the members of their family and they happily sacrificed whatever necessary in order to satisfy their contrived beliefs about who they should be.

I grew up in a house where love was proxied through a God I could never believe in. A house where the love of music with any sort of a beat was literally beaten out of me. A house full of hatred and intolerance, run by two people who were experts at appearing kind and warm when others were around. Parents who tell an eight year old that his grandmother is going to Hell because she's Catholic. Parents who claim not to be racist but then talk about the horrors of miscegenation. I could list hundreds of other examples, but it's tiring.

Since being kicked out, I've interacted with them in relatively normal ways. I talk to them on the phone like nothing happened. I'm not sure why. Maybe because I like pretending I have a family. Maybe I like having people I can talk to about what's been going on in my life. Whatever the reason, it's not real and it feels like a sham. I should have never allowed this reconnection to happen.

I wrote the above a while ago, and I do feel like that much of the time. At other times, though, I feel less hateful. I know my parents honestly believe the crap they believe in. I know that my mom, at least, loved me very much and tried her best. One reason I put this off for so long is because I know how much pain it will cause her. She has been sad since she found out I wasn't "saved", since she believes I'm going to Hell, which is not a sadness for which I am responsible. That was never going to change, and presumably she believes the state of my physical body is much less important than the state of my soul. Still, I cannot intellectually justify this decision, knowing how much it will hurt her. Maybe my ability to take my own life, knowing how much pain it will cause, shows that I am a monster who doesn't deserve to live. All I know is that I can't deal with this pain any longer and I'm am truly sorry I couldn't wait until my family and everyone I knew died so this could be done without hurting anyone. For years I've wished that I'd be hit by a bus or die while saving a baby from drowning so my death might be more acceptable, but I was never so lucky.

To those of you who have shown me love, thank you for putting up with all my shittiness and moodiness and arbitrariness. I was never the person I wanted to be. Maybe without the darkness I would have been a better person, maybe not. I did try to be a good person, but I realize I never got very far.

I'm sorry for the pain this causes. I really do wish I had another option. I hope this letter explains why I needed to do this. If you can't understand this decision, I hope you can at least forgive me.

Bill Zeller

—-

Please save this letter and repost it if gets deleted. I don't want people to wonder why I did this. I disseminated it more widely than I might have otherwise because I'm worried that my family might try to restrict access to it. I don't mind if this letter is made public. In fact, I'd prefer it be made public to people being unable to read it and drawing their own conclusions.

Feel free to republish this letter, but only if it is reproduced in its entirety.

Legalizing child porn deters sex abuse?

2010-12-12T05:03:00.000-08:00

ANI, Dec 1, 2010, 01.34pm IST

Researchers from University of Hawaii have suggested that legalizing child pornography could aid in reducing the rates of child sex abuse.

Researcher Milton Diamond and colleagues noted that results from the Czech Republic showed, as seen everywhere else studied ( Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Finland, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sweden, USA), that rape and other sex crimes have not increased following the legalization and wide availability of pornography.

And most significantly, the incidence of child sex abuse has fallen considerably since 1989, when child pornography became readily accessible – a phenomenon also seen in Denmark and Japan.

The findings support the theory that potential sexual offenders use child pornography as a substitute for sex crimes against children.

However, the authors do not approve of the use of real children in the production or distribution of child pornography, they say that artificially produced materials might serve a purpose.

Diamond and team looked at what actually happened to sex-related crimes in the Czech Republic as it transitioned from having a strict ban on sexually explicit materials to a situation where the material was decriminalized.

The researchers monitored the number of sex-related crimes from Ministry of Interior records – rape, attempted rape, sexual assault, and child sex abuse in particular – for 15 years during the ban and 18 years after it was lifted.

Most significantly, they found that the number of reported cases of child sex abuse dropped markedly immediately after the ban on sexually explicit materials was lifted in 1989.

In both Denmark and Japan, the situation is similar: Child sex abuse was much lower than it was when availability of child pornography was restricted.

Other results showed that, there was no increase in reported sex-related crimes generally since the legalization of pornography.

Their findings are published online in Springer's journal Archives of Sexual Behavior .

Read more: Legalizing child porn deters sex abuse - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/relationships/parenting/Legalizing-child-porn-deters-sex-abuse/articleshow/7021914.cms#ixzz17tzYWHeH

TSO's listen up!

2010-12-12T04:41:00.000-08:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-11971829

Despite being thousands of miles away, lax laws and laxer implementation, compounded by lethargy and corruption, which emboldens many of you to to think India is your ideal destination ( as some of you have openly stated in press conferences) justice does prevail!

Hertfordshire man jailed for raping girl in Goa

Barry McCloud plied the girl with spiked drinks to carry out the attacks

A Hertfordshire man who travelled to India to film himself raping a 10-year-old girl has been sentenced to life in prison.

Barry McCloud, 54, of Tudor Walk, Watford, groomed his victim after befriending her "slum-dwelling" family, St Albans Crown Court heard.

He admitted three rapes and 18 related charges in Goa between 2005 and 2007.

Judge Marie Catterson said McCloud's crimes were "abhorrent". She said he must serve at least seven years.

The court heard the girl had felt unable to report what was happening because McCloud paid for her brother's education.

McCloud and his wife had met the victim's brother while he was selling peanuts at a beach resort in the 1990s.

The child's father was dead and the mother had raised nine children by selling pots and pans.

Drugged mango juice

McCloud's activities came to light in 2007 when police in the UK suspected him of downloading images of child abuse and seized his computer.

Officers found images of the rapes as well as video clips McCloud had taken on a camcorder as he raped and abused the girl, described in court as a "slum dweller".

McCloud continued to visit Goa after splitting up with his wife in 2005, and would tell the girl's brother to bring his sister to his accommodation.

The court heard McCloud gave her mango juiced laced with temazepam, which would leave her unconscious.

Judge Catterson said: "It's clear the victim felt unable to complain about you because of the financial support you were giving her brother."

'Extremely rare'

McCloud also admitted four counts of assault, three of administering a noxious substance so he could engage in sexual activity, and one of sexual assault of a child.

He pleaded guilty to eight charges of taking indecent photographs of the child and two charges relating to the making and possessing of indecent photographs of children.

Christine Beddoe, director of ECPAT UK, a child rights charity which supported the police investigation, said: "Unfortunately the UK has an appalling record in prosecuting British citizens for child sexual abuse overseas and successful cases like this are extremely rare.

"ECPAT UK is calling on the government to introduce a cross-government strategy to deal effectively with sex offenders who abuse children overseas to better protect children in the UK and abroad."

Tamsyn Wilcox, CPS district crown prosecutor, said: "Barry McCloud abused the trust of a family living in extreme poverty in Goa and used his position of trust to gain access to the victim in this case.

"This outcome sends a strong message to those people who think they can sexually abuse children whilst travelling abroad, without facing prosecution."

Airport campaign targets sex tourists

2010-12-06T06:09:00.000-08:00

Airport campaign targets sex tourists

Last Updated: Thursday, November 18, 2010
6:53 PM ET Comments10Recommend12CBC News

A new poster campaign at two Quebec airports will warn travellers about the consequences of child sex tourism.

The campaign is part of a nationwide effort to reduce the sexual exploitation of children around the globe. It was spearheaded by a number of law enforcement agencies, non-governmental organizations, as well as the Trudeau Airport and Air Canada.

Posters intended to discourage sex tourism will soon be visible at airports in Montreal and Quebec City as well as on iar Canada flights. (CBC)The posters show an image of a middle-aged man with his arm around a young girl in a tropical setting. Their faces are scratched out, and the caption reads, "If you can't show what you did on vacation, maybe you shouldn't do it."

The posters will soon be up at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport in Montreal and the Jean Lesage International Airport in Quebec City. Air Canada will begin showing an in-flight video reminding Canadians they can be prosecuted at home for sex abuses they commit abroad.

Cheryl Perera is the founder of OneChild, a non-profit organization dedicated to fighting the exploitation of children and one of the NGOs behind the campaign. She supports the effort but admits it will take more than posters to solve the problem.

"I'm not going to say it's the one and only solution for it, but it is a start, because in that way it lets them know that we're watching them, that their activities are not invisible to the public," says Perera.

She says campaign organizers are trying to get the posters into other Canadian airports but have met with some resistance because of the sensitive nature of the issue.

The International Bureau for Children's Rights estimates that two million children are exploited sexually worldwide every year.
The Canadian poster campaign was launched at Trudeau Airport in Montreal on Thursday to mark International Children's Rights Day.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2010/11/18/airport-campaign-targets-sex-tourists.html#ixzz17LAm9jSb

Europol launches Project HAVEN – Halting Europeans Abusing Victims in Every Nation

2010-12-06T05:49:00.000-08:00

The Hague - The Netherlands.

Europol launches Project HAVEN – Halting Europeans Abusing Victims in Every Nation. The initiative was launched at Europol’s annual meeting of Child Sexual Exploitation Experts and aims to detect and disrupt European travelling sex offenders that exploit local children in destination countries.

While it is almost impossible to know the true extent of the problem given its illegal nature, UNICEF figures estimate that around 2 million children are currently enslaved in the global commercial sex trade. A large majority of individuals engaging in child sex tourism are paedophiles who travel from developed countries to exploit the most vulnerable children, who are generally found in areas of low income. Shockingly, these children can be as young as six or seven years old.

At the expert meeting on 18 November 2010, the results of a situation report drafted by Europol’s Child Sexual Exploitation Group were presented to law enforcement experts from EU and non–EU countries and to practitioners from international organisations and non-governmental organisations.

Under Project Haven, Europol will coordinate a common EU effort to address these crimes of child sexual abuse being committed by European citizens outside their countries of origin. This will include the coordination of international operations run by EU law enforcement authorities, as well as supporting the project through awareness events to discourage potential child sex offenders from abusing children abroad. Furthermore, in the long term, preventive measures such as a permanent notification or alert system should be implemented at Europol in order to trace child sex offenders and limit their illegal and deplorable activities.

Europol Director, Mr Rob Wainwright, commented: "Child sex tourism is an abhorrent violation of the human rights of children and is one of the worst crimes investigated by Europol. The victims are vulnerable children who deserve the protection of society. Europol launches Project Haven as a major new initiative in Europe to crack down on the criminals involved and to alleviate the suffering of children".

Tulir creates another blog

2010-12-06T04:01:00.000-08:00

Tulirindia.blogspot.com will publish posts pertaining only to Tulir's activities.
Childsexualabuseinindia.blogspot.com will continue as a platform to inform and discuss views and opinions on news, initiatives and other aspects of relevance to addressing child sexual abuse.

Both blogs hope to engage with bystanders/readers/slackactivists to keep up and increase the drumbeat against child sexual abuse

COE campaign to stop sexual violence against children.

2010-12-03T11:47:00.000-08:00

The Council of Europe this week launched a new http://www.underwearrule.org/

The campaign sets a simple rule, called the Underwear Rule, to help parents explain to their children where others should not try to touch them, their right to set limits, and the need to expr...ess their feelings and speak up against abuse. The rule is explained in a TV spot, a children’s book, a website and other support materials featuring a character called Kiko.

http://www.sexnrespect.co.nz/

2010-12-03T10:10:00.000-08:00

A website working to create communities free of sexual violence, where young people are enjoying positive, respectful experiences of sexuality and relationships free of pressure & coercion

Complete Resource Guide for MALE Victims & Survivors of Abuse

2010-12-03T09:28:00.000-08:00

http://www.help4guys.org/Home_Page.html

This site is a Complete Resource Guide for MALE Victims & Survivors of Abuse and is here to provide all the information and resources you may need if you are thinking of getting help and healing your life in order to move forward in a positive direction.

We also wish to inspire people and organizations that provide help services to female victims and survivors to start offering specialized services for abused males, if you do not already. If you are a service provider, we offer information here to help you start to understand some basics of how to deal with the special needs of male victims and survivors of all forms of abuse.

Tulir Annual Lecture Series

2010-11-25T11:46:00.000-08:00

To be seen and heard

2010-11-21T11:51:00.000-08:00

Tulir - Centre for the Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse, along with Shakti Resource Centre, cordially invites you to a preview screening of two of the four films that comprise I AM, directed by Onir, at 6:30pm on Saturday, 4 December 2010, at the South India Film Chamber Theatre in Chennai.

I AM is about issues confronting modern Indian society and explores the struggles individuals encounter while finding their identity and upholding their dignity.

I am Abhimanyu is about an adult who has been sexually abused as a child, and I am Omar is an account of the complexities of a homosexual relationship unfolding over an evening and against prevailing attitudes and laws.

The 50-minute screening will be followed by a panel discussion featuring Onir, actor Arjun Mathur, advocate Geetha Ramaseshan, and will be moderated by film critic Baradwaj Rangan.

We consider this an opportunity not just to create more awareness about prevention and healing of child sexual abuse, but also to address the very bizarre, but very common, misunderstanding that conflates homosexuality and child sexual abuse.

Please contact 91+44+26192026 or email tulircphcsa@yahoo.co.in for donor passes (Rs. 500/- per pass).

And please do forward, tweet, post this to whomever you think would be interested.

Shakti Resource Center is a non-profit organisation engaged in setting up support and advocacy services for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender/ transsexual (LGBT) people. Besides these, ‘Shakti’ is also involved in creating spaces and tools that enable discussions on gender, sexuality, sexual health and rights

I AM, born of true life incidents, is an initiative taken by film director-producer Onir and actor-producer Sanjay Suri to spread awareness by addressing certain issues in our society while popularising the culture of watching content-oriented mainstream cinema. Please visit Iamthefilms.com for more information

Tulir's new poster flyer

2010-11-21T11:45:00.000-08:00

The crux of child sexual abuse - secrets about touching need to be told to help prevent the deafening silence of shame, guilt, fear,etc., which usually follows.
A group of children read and discuss the poster at a school.

Walk your voice- An update

2010-11-21T11:23:00.000-08:00

Child protection is everyone's business

The slogans said it all!

Madras Hash House Harriers - Dare to Care

2010-11-20T11:51:00.000-08:00

The Madras Hash House Harriers have been the first to show (walk, run et al) that they dare to care! The Nov 14 the Run was dedicated to spreading awareness about Child Abuse. Besides allowing for the kiosk to be installed at the starting/ending venue, the harriers also distributed leaflets for adults and children along the route, taking time off to engage with interested people. Some of them have also offered venues for the kiosk during the course of the month
Add a caption
The Madras Hash House Harriers have been the first to show (walk, run et al) that they dare to care! The Nov 14 the Run was dedicated to spreading awareness about Child Abuse. Besides allowing for the kiosk to be installed at the starting/ending venue, the Harriers also distributed leaflets for adults and children along the route, taking time off to engage with interested people. Some of them have also offered venues for the kiosk during the course of the month

Being smart online to stay safe offline

2010-11-20T11:44:00.000-08:00

Recognzing the intersection of sexual abuse and bullying with ICT's this poster designed by Tulir was issued in Public interest by the Hindu as a full page poster in the weekly edition of Young World Nov.16, 2010, to commemerate the World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse

Quiz on Child Rights, Child Protection and Civic Responsibilities

2010-11-20T03:49:00.001-08:00

The second phase of the Police - school children interaction was a quiz on child rights child, protection and civic responsibilities besides some fun everyday questions .(Thanks to Quiz Foundation of India, Chennai Chapter)
Over 200 schools, (each school represented by two young people from Std 8/9) 200 teachers and police personnel participated.
Needless to state awareness material on child sexual abuse prevention for each specific group was shared. Sandhosh who climbed Mt Everest this May and supports efforts against child sexual abuse(he hopes to collect at least a million pledges online), gave away the prizes. ( Pls visit millionpledges.com). More nex tweekfrom the Commissioner's office

Safe Schools- Secrets about touching need to be told

2010-11-19T23:20:00.000-08:00

As part of a collobarative, proactive and continuing effort and concern( since the last 4 years) to ensure the well being and safety of children studying in all the 281 schools managed by the Corporation of Chennai,ulir designed, fabricated and installed boards in each of the schools with non threatening age appropriate easy to remember simple personal safety rules. This information/messages will work towards equipping and empowering children to build self protective behavior.
It is based on the concepts of Personal Safety Education a program, which is an extension of the safety, rules we teach our children, i.e. don’t play with fire, look both sides before and while crossing a road, etc.
An initiative all private schools should emulate!

With a large part of the truly "awake" time of a child's waking hours being spent at school, schools are at the frontline of child protection. They have the potential to both teach protective behaviors effectively and to a greater number of children than any other system, including parental instructions. And needless to state the school and the community of educators and caretakers are one of the most significant aspects in a child's world.
When children do not feel safe most of their other rights including education, play and their overall well being are minimized. Besides sabotaging a child's right to a childhood, there may also be an associated range of problems both in the short term and across a life span affecting not just the individual but also more often than not the larger community.

NDTV - Hindu, Way to go!

2010-11-19T23:10:00.000-08:00

Thanks for the show of support and solidarity by being a part of the yellow bow campaign. Child Protection is everyone;s responsibility!
The World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse is a process for the emergence of a culture of prevention around the issue of violence against girls and boys.Sustai...ned advocacy and activity is required in order to build societal commitments for child safety and protection, and it is imperative to expand the process by reaching out to as many people to rally for a collective stand towards zero tolerance towards child abuse.

Driving home the point

2010-11-19T22:54:00.000-08:00

Display on Bus Panels has resulted in a spate of calls to Tulir - ranging from curiosity to information seeking to catharisizing to requests for help.

Nov. 19 - World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse

2010-11-18T12:01:00.000-08:00

Alerting Governments and civil society organizations to play a more active role in the promotion of and respect for the rights of the child (article 19 and 34 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child), and contribute to the prevention of child abuse, WWSF (www.woman.ch) launched in 2000 the World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse, a Day to be commemorated every 19 November in synergy with the anniversary of the International Day for the rights of the child (20 November) which has as its objective to be a rallying point around the issue of child abuse and the need for urgent effective prevention programs. The World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse is a process for the emergence of a culture of prevention around the issue of violence against girls and boys. Alerting Governments, civil society organizations and concerned citizens to play a more active role in the respect, promotion and fulfillment of rights of all children and contribute to the prevention of violence against children, the World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse is commemorated every 19th November. Since sustained advocacy and activity is required in order to build societal commitments for child safety and protection, it is imperative to expand the process by reaching out to as many people to rally for a collective stand towards zero tolerance towards child abuse.

Walk Your Voice - Rallying against child sexual abuse

2010-11-14T11:55:00.000-08:00

Join us at a Rally against Child Sexual Abuse
Nov 21, 2010
Besant Nagar Beach, Chennai 4.oo pm.( assemble opp Cozee's0
Sexual abuse of children is frightening, often unimaginable & an abhorrent crime. Deafening silence is the hallmark. While it's the moral obligation for adults to ensure children are protected, we remain silent. More often than not for plain selfish reasons. The discomfort caused if acknowledged, the denial that our children can be sexually abused, family reputation at stake, sheer naiveté. Then there’s the quietness of the children. Because of the manipulation, ignorance, fear.
A silenced vulnerable child & a silent non-protective environment-working to an abuser’s advantage. Since usually victims are their relatives, neighbors, students, friends etc.
While in India we are just beginning to acknowledge the existence of abuse, Tulir has the belief & audacity of hope that it won't be long that the larger community realizes the prevalence, dynamics & subsequent impact. The sabotage of a child’s right to a childhood. The often less than optimally led lives as adults.
A a society’s integrity & worth is not based on whether cases of sexual abuse exist. Instead it's based on the acceptance of the possibilities & proactive steps taken to respond in a timely & appropriate way to ensure that its children may benefit from its caring & foresight to truly have the right to be safe all the time, everywhere. After all, there is no excuse for child sexual abuse!

Volunteers needed - Do you dare to care enough??

2010-11-11T11:58:00.000-08:00

A society that turns a blind eye or is passive and a silent bystander to any form of violation of child rights only promotes abuse. Moreover ignorance, discomfort and denial facilitate abuse. In this scenario it is imperative for proactive measures to be taken in orde...r to spread awareness and debunk myths that surround these crimes against children. So do you dare to care enough to be a part of the campaign – “Chennai in one state of mind – To prevent sexual violence against children”Well, then help us set up for a few hours on any day between Nov 15 – Dec. 15, 2010 our collapsible theme designed kiosk to(4ftx4ft) at a strategic locale decided/identified by you to distribute the posters, stickers, flyers and other awareness material that will inform public perception and understanding on child abuse. Volunteers at the kiosk will also be available to interact with interested citizens to help them with a better understanding to address the situation of children facing violence. Sustained advocacy and activity is required in order to equip folks with information and awareness to contribute towards ensuring children’s right to protection. After all it takes a community to protect a child. Pls call 26192026 if you dare to care

‎29 more days to go to Nov 19 - World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse

2010-10-21T12:11:00.000-07:00

So what have you done today to prevent a child being abused and what do you plan to do tomorrow? Maybe just clicking on this YouTube link will help you realize what 1 in 4 women whom you meet and 1 in 10 men have experienced and maybe continu...eto, due to the sexually abusive experiences they had as children.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8x0WMKQPKQ

30 days more to Novemeber 19 - World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse

2010-10-21T12:09:00.000-07:00

And you certainly dont want to remain a bystander, anymore. Post this link on to your Wall and share it with as many people as you can
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPyQtl6wntQ

Hospitals make raped minor wait nine hours

2010-10-10T00:51:00.000-07:00

Refused to admit her till police case was filed, cops take four hours to register complaint

Yogesh Sadhwani

Posted On Friday, October 08, 2010 at 02:02:31 AM

The aversion hospitals have for 'police cases' on Tuesday caused unimaginable pain and trauma for a four-year-old victim of rape. The minor from Bhiwandi, who was bleeding profusely and weeping inconsolably, had to wait nine hours to get medical attention. Hospital after hospital, including one run by the municipal corporation, in Bhiwandi turned her parents down.

The Supreme Court has time and again ruled that in medical emergencies, legal formalities can be carried out after a patient is treated.

The four-year-old came home crying at 2.30 pm on Tuesday. Rekhadevi Sah, her mother, noticed that her clothes were stained with blood. She then took a closer look and realised that the child's private parts were bleeding profusely. Rekhadevi rushed her daughter to Amina, a nearby private hospital.

“They refused to admit her. They told me it was a police case.” Rekhadevi then took her to two other private institutions – Dr Megha's polyclinic and Dr Irfan's polyclinic – with the same result. By then, her husband Pappu Sah had joined her. They headed to the municipality-run Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital.

“I had heard that civic hospitals don't insist on a police complaint before treating a patient. But the doctor on duty did not even examine my daughter and, instead, insisted I return after reporting it to the police. My daughter was bleeding and in pain. I begged and pleaded with the doctor,” said Pappu, who runs a small business.

As they were running out of options, they went to Bhoiwada police station. Here too, they were kept waiting for about four hours. “I requested the officers to give me a memo directing the hospital to admit her but they took their own sweet time,” Pappu said.

It was only at 11.45 pm, nine hours later, that a rape case was registered and the family taken to the IGM hospital by the police. The minor was finally admitted and administered pain killers.

But even that was not the end of her nightmare. The next morning, she was transferred to Thane Civil Hospital for treatment even though her wounds had not been sutured. Even at Thane, she was made to wait for two hours and directed once more to Sion Hospital. Late on Wednesday night, the child's wounds were finally sutured at Sion.

The girl's parents are in shock after the incident. “Doctors here told us that she could have died due to excessive bleeding,” Pappu said. Dr Rajesh Dere, forensic expert at Sion, said shuttling between hospitals and delay at the police station could have affected the biological evidence. “The evidence should be collected immediately. Then it can be used effectively to corroborate the offence,” he said.

Pappu is agitated and plans to pursue the matter with the authorities. Dr Dere said, “If a doctor refuses to examine a patient for the lack of a police report, he can be booked under section 201 and 202 of the Indian Penal Code.”

The private hospitals could not be contacted. Chief Medical Officer, IGM Hospital, Dr K R Kharat said, “We will initiate the action against the doctor who refused treatment.” Meanwhile, Senior Inspector, Bhoiwada Police, R C Patil, defended the officers on duty. “We didn't take too long to file an FIR and send her to the hospital,” he said. He could not, however, explain why the girl was not simply given a memo and rushed to hospital.

http://www.mumbaimirror.com/article/2/201010082010100802023137346414dfd/Hospitals-make-raped-minor-wait-nine-hours.html

When the Abuser Is No Stranger: The Quest for Erin's Law

2010-09-30T00:26:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, Sep. 29, 2010
When the Abuser Is No Stranger: The Quest for Erin's Law
By Wendy Cole / Chicago

Throughout her school years, Erin Merryn of Schaumburg, Ill., received plenty of lessons in the dangers her elders thought she could encounter during her childhood. She was taught how to ride out a tornado, instructed in the eight steps for turning down illegal drugs, and told how to react to a friendly stranger who might try to abduct her. But nothing prepared her for two traumatizing events that have turned Merryn, now 25, into an activist, determined to prevent the same thing from happening to other children.

The first episode began on a warm May night in 1991. Merryn, then 6, was excited about her first sleepover with her kindergarten classmate Ashley. After an evening of playing with Ashley's dollhouse and watching The Little Mermaid, the girls went to bed in Ashley's room. Merryn lay on blankets on the floor next to Ashley, who was in her bed. In the wee hours of the night, Ashley's uncle "Richard" (not his real name), who lived in the house with his niece, appeared in the darkened room. He sat down in front of Merryn and put his finger to his lips signaling her to remain quiet. Seconds later his hand was down her pants. Merryn was as bewildered as she was frightened. "I didn't understand what was going on," she says. "I just stared at the ceiling waiting for it to end." Her friend slept through the assault, and Merryn remained silent. (Read why most child abuse goes unreported)

Merryn kept her confusion to herself. She didn't want to stop visiting her friend but tried to find times when Richard wasn't around. She wasn't always successful. The man, then in his late 20s, abused her several more times in the next year, including, she says, raping her during a daytime visit when she thought he wouldn't be home.

When Merryn eventually confided in Ashley about what had happened, her friend was not surprised; in fact, the scene was depressingly familiar to her. But Ashley begged her not to say anything because Richard had told her they would "lose the house" if the girls told anyone. Says Merryn: "[Ashley] made me pinky promise not to say anything."

Merryn's family, including her two sisters, moved to another neighborhood in the same town when Merryn was 8, and she stopped seeing Ashley. But at age 11, Merryn's second nightmare began. At a family gathering at her grandparents' lake house, she awoke in the middle of the night to find her cousin "Brian" (again, not his real name), then 13, lying next to her with his hands down her underwear. He continued to abuse her on and off for nearly two years, she says, often at holidays and celebrations with her close-knit extended family. He cornered her in basements, bathrooms and bedrooms, always reminding her that she shouldn't bother telling anyone because no one would believe her. It ended only after a chance conversation between Merryn and one of her sisters, who blurted out one day that their cousin Brian was "gross." Merryn realized he had been molesting her sister too. They talked for hours about what had happened, and the next day told their parents about their shared horror. (See Gary Glitter's sex scandal.)

The family pressed charges against Brian, who ultimately admitted to three counts of sexual abuse. The case never went to trial, and Brian received some counseling, but no punishment. The two families have ceased having contact.

Merryn's experiences belie the more common parental fears of "stranger danger." Young children tend to hear a lot of messages about avoiding interactions with people they don't know, when in reality they are far more likely to face harm from a relative or family friend. Victims of abuse know their perpetrators 80% to 90% of the time, says David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.

Read "Is Child Abuse On the Decline?"

See the sex abuse in Israel's ultra-orthodox community.

For a long time, Merryn didn't know what to do with her anger and fear as an abused child. She spent one afternoon at a park breaking discarded bottles. She didn't tell any adults what had happened to her. "I didn't realize that what had happened wasn't my fault. I didn't know the difference between a safe and an unsafe secret," Merryn says. Later, she helped herself heal by writing two books about her experiences (Stolen Innocence and Living for Today).

Now she is moving into political action. Earlier this year, Merryn reached out to Illinois legislators about the need for schools to adopt age-appropriate curriculum on child sexual abuse. Republican state senator Tim Bivins championed what became known as "Erin's Law," which passed the state senate unanimously. The legislation, which is expected to be taken up by the House in November, would create a task force to devise strategies for reducing child sexual abuse throughout the state and permit school boards to implement similar measures. The aim is to bring into the classroom (for students from pre-K through fifth grade) what is seldom discussed openly: that even trusted family members and friends can pose a threat to their well-being. Teachers would also be trained to recognize warning signs that their students have been sexually abused, including mood swings or acting distant at odd times, and be able to tell students where to go for assistance if they have been victimized. (See the church sex abuse scandals around the world.)

A poised and charismatic speaker, Merryn has traveled the country making speeches to law-enforcement and abuse-prevention groups. And she will soon tell her story on Oprah, which she hopes will give her effort the jolt it needs to become a nationwide movement.

Erin's Law would not be the first statewide effort to tackle this issue. Ohio and New Jersey have statewide mandates to implement abuse-prevention programs in their schools, according to Finkelhor, and Texas passed a similar prevention measure in 2009. The problem, Finkelhor says, is getting schools to focus on the issue at a time when resources are limited and their priorities are on beefing up academic programs — which has put ancillary efforts such as anti-bullying and mental-health issues on the back burner. "I don't think schools would be resistant to the idea that this prevention is needed," he says. "But there are so many other demands on them these days." Nor are they likely to have the resources to provide the kind of intensive curriculum that is necessary. A guest speaker for 45 minutes wouldn't be very helpful, says Finkelhor: "The best programs are very intensive and expensive."(Read about a child abuse case in Vietnam.)

The attention on sexual abuse of children in recent years, along with increases in the numbers of law-enforcement and child-protection personnel, has made an impact. According to Finkelhor, national child maltreatment data show that the rate of sex abuse against children under 18 declined 58% between 1992 and 2008, when the number of substantiated cases was reported to be a still disturbing 68,500. As Finkelhor notes, "It's still a major source of trauma and long-term dysfunction in children."

Merryn, who got a master's degree in social work, focusing on sexual-abuse prevention, is determined to keep up her campaign to make her cause a national movement. "I don't want parents to think they need to put a bubble around their kids 24/7," she says. "We need to give kids the knowledge and tools they need to come forward when something happens. I had my innocence taken. I don't want it to happen to anyone else."

Find this article at:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2022124,00.html

Dignity on Trial

2010-09-09T23:51:00.000-07:00

Human Rights Watch
http://www.hrw.org/node/92724

India’s Need for Sound Standards for Conducting and Interpreting Forensic Examinations of Rape SurvivorsSeptember 6, 2010

This 54-page report documents the continued use of the archaic practice and the continued reliance on the "results" by many defense counsel and courts. The practice, described in outdated medical jurisprudence textbooks used by many doctors, lawyers, and judges, involves a doctor inserting fingers in a rape victim's vagina to determine the presence or absence of the hymen and the so-called "laxity" of the vagina. These findings perpetuate false and damaging stereotypes of rape survivors as "loose" women. Defense attorneys use the findings to challenge the credibility, character, and the lack of consent of the survivors.

let go let peace come in

2010-08-06T13:02:00.000-07:00

Let Go...Let Peace Come in Foundation

Sexually abused children face unprecedented challenges as they grow into adulthood. This foundation was created to discuss and communicate those challenges and life altering effects with adult survivors from ages 18 to 100!

Research shows that regardless of whether survivors hold vivid, vague, or repressed memories of their childhood sexual abuse, the first step survivors must take is to understand the need for support and help to be able to LET GO... of the memories of the trauma, the shame, the fear, the isolation, and the one or multiple addictions they've developed over the years. Once adult survivors can start to see and correlate how the sexual abuse caused their life of dysfunction and disassociation it is the foundation's hope that they will start to live again and LET PEACE COME IN to their hearts and lives!

This website brings awareness to adults as to the effects of childhood sexual abuse and providing the assistance to recover. Website: http://www.letgoletpeacecomein.org/

Boys and Men Healing - a documentary

2010-08-06T13:00:00.000-07:00

For those interested in the issue of male child sexual abuse, and the importance of healing for the well-being of individuals and communities,
an edited new clip of 10 minute excerpts from the film, including the more recent footage where men speak boldly about healing, ending the cycle of violence, and reclaiming their lives.

Please visit www.bigvoicepictures.com to view the clip, and learn more about recent screenings by reading the blog on the site.

Tulir Workshop Series

2010-07-19T10:50:00.000-07:00

With prevention increasingly gaining recognition as the most prudent and cost effective strategy for addressing child sexual abuse, we are pleased to invite you for a Workshop Series focusing on prevention. It will be led by our Visiting Expert in Residence, Prof. Carol Plummer, who besides working on many aspects of child sexual abuse over the past 30 years, has also authored Preventing Sexual Abuse, a prevention curriculum. More information about Dr Plummer is available at www.carolplummer.net
The series is spread over 5 days between Aug. 2 - Aug 6, at Chennai
Please contact tulircphcsa@yahoo.co.in or call 26192026 (10 am - 6 pm, Monday – Friday) for further details

Soon, law to tackle child sex abuse: Moily

2010-06-30T07:37:00.001-07:00

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Soon-law-to-tackle-child-sex-abuse-Moily/articleshow/6108543.cms

CHENNAI: India will soon have its first law to deal exclusively with child sexual abuse cases. The provisional draft of the bill, titled ‘Sexual Offences Against Children Bill, 2010', seeks to substitute the word ‘rape' with technical terms and cover several forms of abuse of both boys and girls, which now remain grey areas in the absence of a specific legislation. The proposed legislation calls for setting up of special courts, special public prosecutors and child-friendly proceedings.

"We have prepared a provisional draft in consultation with NGOs and experts, which will be forwarded to the ministry of woman and child development for inputs. We have not set a deadline to present the Bill in Parliament but we want to do it at the earliest, given the increasing number of child sexual abuse cases in the country," Union law minister Veerappa Moily told TOI.

Calling for special courts and special prosecutors in every district to try such cases, the draft proposes that evidence from the child be recorded within a month of the court taking cognizance and the trial be completed within a year.

At present, cases of sexual offences against children are being tried under the Indian Penal Code, which does not always take into consideration the age of the victim. With such offences attracting only such sections that deal with rape, unnatural offences and outraging the modesty of a woman, many sexual offences against children, especially those against boys, were not getting a focussed trial, it was felt.

The draft proposes to prosecute child sex offenders mainly under five heads —penetrative sexual assault, aggravated penetrative sexual assault, sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault and sexual harassment.

While penetrative sexual assault covers all kinds of penetration using body parts or objects, the other acts come under sexual assault. Sexual harassment covers abuse of a child using gestures and spoken words.

The term ‘aggravated' is prefixed to offences when the perpetrator is a person who wields power by virtue of being in a position of authority or trust or when the victim has a mental or physical disability. It recommends punishments ranging from three years in jail for ‘sexual harassment' to life imprisonment for ‘aggravated sexual assault.'

The proposed special courts for offences against children would also hear cases pertaining to child abuse as defined under the Information Technology Act, which includes abuse through the internet and child pornography. "The bill proposes to also cover IT-aided crime against children. It will be a comprehensive law to protect children against all forms of sexual abuse," the law minister said.

While the proposed bill defines a person below the age of 18 as a child, it permits sex between people above the age of 16 years if it meets 14 conditions that define consent.

And Justice for All?

2010-06-30T04:33:00.000-07:00

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JQ0gvMjAxMC8wNi8zMCNBcjAwMjAw&Mode=Gif&Locale=english-skin-custom

Nowhere in the world was the Criminal Justice System(CJS) written with a child victim in mind. Having to face a system that is geared to the needs of adults can be a difficult experience for any victim of crime. When it comes to child victims and witnesses the experience can be doubly traumatic, thereby seriously undermining the full respect of the rights of the child. At the very least it can be intimidating. The implications of not having evolved ( since the 19th century) procedures to address this oversight unlike other countries( including other Commonwealth countries) does not work in favor of instilling a sense of confidence in families and the community to report so that the gap between prevalence and reporting can be narrowed. Furthermore it continues to undermine the abusive experiences of children and its impact while emboldening perpetrators. It is therefore imperative and urgent for more concerted efforts to work towards a more just and efficacious justice delivery system that would allow child victims/witnesses to truly realize their rights as enshrined in the Constitution of India

Child sexual abuse needs a public health approach

2010-06-19T07:05:00.000-07:00

Imagine a childhood disease that affects one in five girls and one in seven
boys before they reach 18 (Finkelhor & Dziuba-Leatherman, 1994): a disease
that can cause dramatic mood swings, erratic behavior, and even severe
conduct disorders among those exposed; a disease that breeds distrust of
adults and undermines the possibility of experiencing normal sexual
relationships; a disease that can have profound implications for an
individual's future health by increasing the risk of problems such as
substance abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, and suicidal behavior
(Crowell & Burgess, 1996); a disease that replicates itself by causing some
of its victims to expose future generations to its debilitating effects.

Imagine what we, as a society, would do if such a disease existed. We would
spare no expense. We would invest heavily in basic and applied research. We
would devise systems to identify those affected and provide services to
treat them. We would develop and broadly implement prevention campaigns to
protect our children. Wouldn't we?

Such a disease does exist—it’s called child sexual abuse. Our response,
however, has been far from the full-court press reserved for traditional
diseases or health concerns of equal or even lesser magnitude. Perhaps the
perception of sexual abuse as a law enforcement problem or our discomfort in
confronting sexual issues contributes to our complacency. Whatever the
reason, we have severely underestimated the effects of this problem on our
children's health and quality of life.

Excerpted from a commentary by Dr. James Mercy’s, a researcher with the
Center for Disease Control and Prevention: Mercy, J. A. (1999). Having New
Eyes: Viewing Child Sexual Abuse as a Public Health Problem. *Sexual Abuse:
A Journal of Research and Treatment, 11*(4), 317-321.

The Yellow Book - Latest from Tarshi

2010-06-11T04:59:00.000-07:00

Talking to children and young people about sexuality is never easy. This no-nonsense, straightforward and accessible guide will help adults get across the necessary information in the best way possible.

Since 1996, TARSHI has been counseling and supporting people – young and not-so-young – on issues to do with sexuality and sexual health. Building on the success of the highly popular Red Book (for 10 to 14-year-olds) and Blue Book (for 15 and above), the team have put together The Yellow Book specifically for parents and teachers. Full of tips and tools, information and advice,The Yellow Book will help you to talk to your children about sexuality, whether they are toddlers or teens, and help them on their way to becoming happy, healthy and confident adults.

Let me abort: 13-yr-old rape victim to HC

2010-04-21T02:27:00.000-07:00

http://news.in.msn.com/crimefile/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3846574
Ahmedabad: A 13-year-old girl, who conceived after being repeatedly raped, has moved the Gujarat High Court and sought permission to medically terminate her pregnancy after a sessions court rejected her plea.

Daughter of a labourer couple in Surendranagar district, the girl was repeatedly raped, allegedly by a neighbour who had employed her as a cook at his home. The girl and her family lodged a complaint with the Halvad police station on March 11 after she was found to be pregnant.

Her parents took the girl to a local clinic for an abortion but the doctor refused, telling them to first secure permission from a court.

The girl, through her mother, moved a petition in the Dhrangadhra sessions court under provisions of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971. But the court rejected the plea saying there was no evidence on record to show that the health of the girl would suffer because of her pregnancy.

Racing against time to get legal permission to abort within a medically safe period, the girl moved the High Court, saying pregnancy from rape was mental agony and could impact her mental health. The counsel for the girl submitted that it had been established beyond doubt that rape had led to her pregnancy.

The High Court, which heard the petition today, intended to post the matter for May. But it later agreed with the submission that she was already over two months pregnant and needed urgent permission to terminate it. The case will come up next on April 28.

Vatican axed trial for priest accused by deaf boys

2010-03-26T00:19:00.000-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100325/ap_on_re_eu/church_abuse_wisconsin

VATICAN CITY – The Vatican on Thursday strongly defended its decision not to defrock an American priest accused of molesting some 200 deaf boys in Wisconsin and denounced what it called a campaign to smear Pope Benedict XVI and his aides.

Church and Vatican documents showed that in the mid-1990s, two Wisconsin bishops urged the Vatican office led by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — now the pope — to let them hold a church trial against the Rev. Lawrence Murphy. The bishops admitted the trial was coming years after the alleged abuse, but argued that the deaf community in Milwaukee was demanding justice from the church.

An American protester in Rome on Thursday called the Murphy case an "incontrovertible case of pedophilia."

Despite the extensive and grave allegations against Murphy, Ratzinger's deputy at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ruled that the alleged molestation had occurred too long ago and that Murphy — then ailing and elderly — should instead repent and be restricted from celebrating Mass outside of his diocese.

The official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone — now the Vatican's secretary of state — ordered the church trial halted after Murphy wrote Ratzinger a letter saying he was ill, infirm, and "simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood."

The New York Times broke the story Thursday, adding fuel to a swirling scandal about the way the Vatican in general, and Benedict in particular, have handled reports of priests raping children over the years.

On Thursday, a group of Americans who say they were sexually abused by clerics staged a press conference outside St. Peter's Square in Rome to denounce Benedict's handling of the case and gave reporters church and Vatican documents on the case.

Afterward, Italian police detained four Americans for 2 1/2 hours because they didn't have a permit for the news conference and suggested they get a lawyer in case a judge decided to press charges, the Americans said.

"We've spent more time in the police station than Father Murphy did in his life," Peter Isely, the Milwaukee-based director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said after his release.

Speaking at the earlier press conference, Isely called the Murphy case the most "incontrovertible case of pedophilia you could get."

"The goal of Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, was to keep this secret," he said, flanked by photos of others who say they were abused and a poster of Ratzinger. "We need to know why he (the pope) did not let us know about him (Murphy) and why he didn't let the police know about him and why he did not condemn him and why he did not take his collar away from him."

The Vatican issued a strong defense in its handling of the Murphy case. The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said there was no cover-up and denounced what it said was a "clear and despicable intention" to strike at Benedict "at any cost."

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, issued a statement noting that the Murphy case had only reached the Vatican in 1996 — some 20 years after the diocese first learned of the allegations. He also said Murphy died two years later — in 1998 — and that there was nothing in the church's handling of the matter that precluded any civil action from being taken against him.

In fact, police did investigate the allegations at the time and never proceeded with a case, Lombardi noted. He said in the statement that a lack of more recent allegations was a factor in the decision not to defrock Murphy and noted that "the Code of Canon Law does not envision automatic penalties."

Murphy worked at the former St. John's School for the Deaf in St. Francis from 1950 to 1975. His alleged victims were not limited to the deaf boys' school. Donald Marshall, 45, of West Allis, Wisconsin, said he was abused by Murphy when he was a teenager at the Lincoln Hills School, a juvenile detention center in Irma in northern Wisconsin.

"I haven't stepped in a church for some 20 years. I lost all faith in the church," he told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday. "These predators are preying on God's children. How can they even stand up at the pulpit and preach the word of God?"

Church and Vatican documents obtained by two lawyers who have filed lawsuits alleging the Archdiocese of Milwaukee didn't take sufficient action against Murphy show that as many as 200 deaf students had accused him of molesting them, including in the confessional, while he ran the school.

While the documents — letters between diocese and Rome, notes taken during meetings, and summaries of meetings — are remarkable in the church officials' repeated desire to keep the case secret, they do suggest an increasingly determined effort by bishops, albeit 20 years later, to heed the despair of the deaf community in bringing a canonical trial against Murphy.

Ratzinger's deputy, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, though, shut the process down after Murphy wrote Ratzinger a letter saying he had repented, was old and ailing, and that the case's statute of limitations had run out.

"I have just recently suffered another stroke which has left me in a weakened state," he wrote Ratzinger. "I have repented of any of my past transgressions, and have been living peaceably in northern Wisconsin for 24 years. I simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood."

"I ask your kind assistance in this matter," he wrote the man who would be pope within a decade.

According to the documentation, in July 1996, then-Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland sent a letter seeking advice on how to proceed with Murphy to Ratzinger, who led the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1981 until 2005, when he was elected pope.

Weakland explained that he was writing because he had only recently learned that the reason Murphy stopped working in 1975 was because he had been accused of soliciting sex in the confessional, one of the gravest sins in canon law.

Weakland received no response from Ratzinger, and in October 1996 convened a church tribunal to hear the case.

In March 1997, Weakland wrote to the Vatican's Apostolic Signatura, essentially the Vatican high court, asking its advice because he feared the statute of limitations on Murphy's alleged crimes might have expired.

Just a few weeks later, Bertone told the Wisconsin bishops to begin secret disciplinary proceedings against Murphy according to 1962 norms concerning soliciting sex in the confessional, according to the documents.

But a year later, Bertone reversed himself, advising the diocese to stop the process after Murphy wrote to Ratzinger. Bertone suggested that Murphy should instead be subject to "pastoral measures destined to obtain the reparation of scandal and the restoration of justice."

The archbishop then handling the case, Bishop Raphael Fliss, objected, saying in a letter to Bertone that "I have come to the conclusion that scandal cannot be sufficiently repaired, nor justice sufficiently restored, without a judicial trial against Fr. Murphy."

Fliss and Weakland then met with Bertone in Rome in May 1998. Weakland informed Bertone that Murphy had no sense of remorse and didn't seem to realize the gravity of what he had done, according to a Vatican summary of the meeting.

But Bertone insisted that there weren't "sufficient elements to institute a canonical process" against Murphy because so much time had already passed, according to the summary.

Weakland, likening Murphy to a "difficult" child, then reminded Bertone that three psychologists had determined he was a "typical" pedophile, in that he felt himself a victim.

But Bertone suggested Murphy take a spiritual retreat to determine if he is truly sorry, or otherwise face possible defrocking.

"Before the meeting ended, Monsignor Weakland reaffirmed the difficulty he will have to make the deaf community understand the lightness of these provisions," the summary noted.

The documents contain no response from Ratzinger.

The documents emerged even as the Vatican deals with an ever-widening church abuse scandal sweeping several European countries. Benedict last week issued an unprecedented letter to Ireland addressing the 16 years of church cover-up scandals there. But he has yet to say anything about his handling of a case in Germany known to have developed when, as cardinal, he oversaw the Munich Archdiocese from 1977 to 1982.

After Murphy was removed from the school in 1974, he went to northern Wisconsin, where he spent the rest of his life working in parishes, schools and, according to one lawsuit, a juvenile detention center.

Previously released court documents show Weakland oversaw a 1993 evaluation of Murphy that concluded the priest likely assaulted up to 200 students at the school.

Weakland resigned as archbishop in 2002 after admitting the archdiocese secretly paid $450,000 to a man who accused him of sexual abuse.

It takes a community to protect a child

2010-03-22T08:23:00.000-07:00

Tulir appreciates the interest and support of the Samudhaaya Foundation, launched by Padmashri Sudha Raghunathan, on the occasion of its tenth anniversary to support the work with child survivors of child sexual abuse. Kaarunya will be the theme for the function on March 25th, 2010 at 6.30pm, Narada Gana Sabha, Chennai

A new view of child sexual abuse

2010-02-26T09:12:00.000-08:00

A researcher who has been shunned for her views argues that it is the breaking of trust, not the physical act itself, that tortures the victims of pedophilia

Reviewed by Susan Pinker

Globe and Mail Update
Published on Friday, Feb. 19, 2010 11:18AM EST

Last updated on Sunday, Feb. 21, 2010 8:26AM EST

It’s hard to forget the newly separated mother of a preschooler who came into my child psychology clinic 20-odd years ago, her face dark with fury. Earlier that week, her daughter had calmly reported to a daycare worker that “daddy tried to put froggies up my bum.” Convinced this was sexual abuse, the mother wanted me to evaluate the child and be prepared to testify in court to bar the father – in her mind, a criminal and a pervert – from ever visiting his child alone again.

Though I took the claim seriously, I admit I was reticent about the plan. This was the mid-1980s, the peak divorce years in Canada. The school of hard, if not vicious, knocks had taught me that divorcing parents will say anything, and I mean anything, to punish the other parent. And when I evaluated the girl, I discovered that she was doing just fine. She seemed placid, was eating, sleeping and playing well, and her developing skills were on target. Without prompting, she also told me, in her matter-of-fact croaky voice, that daddy had tried to put froggies “down there.” But I wondered, if that were true, why did she look and act so, well … normal? If she had been fondled, or if God forbid something worse had happened, wouldn’t she seem more traumatized?

The Trauma Myth: The Truth About the Sexual Abuse of Children ? and Its Aftermath, by Susan A. Clancy, Basic Books, 236 pages, $31.95

Like most clinicians, I believed the orthodoxy of the era, one that has persisted to this day: Child sexual abuse was like rape but even more traumatic. It was the ultimate violation, an act of force so violent and foreign that there would be no way a child could remain impassive.

Susan Clancy, a Harvard-trained psychologist and researcher, has discovered that the matter is much more complex, and courageously takes on the accepted wisdom in her trenchant new book, The Trauma Myth. This short, punchy work tells two connected stories. The first is Clancy’s well-written empirical account of how child sexual abuse really happens, why victims often stay silent and the real reasons for the oft-delayed, damaging aftermath of abuse. The second story is about how we crucify scientists whose findings don’t match our preconceptions. On hot-button issues they can be hounded out of their labs and research institutions if their data jeopardize long-accepted political scripts.

“ [The] co-opting of a child’s loyalty and 'participation' is what prompts great distress in victims later”

The book’s narrative begins in the mid-1990s, when Clancy, then a graduate student, became interested in studying trauma and memory. She placed an ad for research subjects in The Boston Globe: “Were you sexually abused as a child? Please call Susan for more information regarding a research study in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University.”

Urgent messages of adult respondents soon clogged her office voice mail. Clancy wasn’t surprised. She already knew that “childhood sexual abuse is exceedingly common. Approximately one in five children …” is how she tried to reassure Frank, her first volunteer, who felt compelled to exit the subway to call her as soon as he read the ad on his evening commute. Unlike the stereotype (think Precious or Lolita), Frank could have been a 42-year-old Cleaver from Leave It to Beaver, a middle-class married man with three kids and a steady job in the financial industry. Yet what Frank told her shocked Clancy.

When Frank was 9, a friend of his family – someone he and his parents cared about and trusted – involved him in mutual sexual touching over a period of six months. What shocked Clancy was that as a young boy he didn’t feel so much violated as chosen, special. The man lavished attention and baseball cards in equal measure, and though Frank didn’t quite “get it,” the touching was part of the experience. As a child, he didn’t feel the touching as traumatic or forced, just puzzling. Like 90 per cent of Clancy’s subjects, Frank was too young to understand the sexual nature of the adult’s overtures, and as he was lonely he enjoyed the adult attention. Feeling complicit made Frank also feel deeply ashamed as an adult. After all, it didn’t match the trauma story that was everywhere in the media, one in which bizarre strangers force themselves on terrified, unsuspecting victims. And as he had done nothing to stop it, then maybe he was the deviant.

Self-blame turned out to be rampant among Clancy’s sample. The vast majority of the child victims never experienced violence, force or intercourse; they don’t remember feeling fear or pain as children, simply confusion. But decades later, when they twig to the betrayal of their trust and innocence, the realization is corrosive. That’s when the psychological damage begins, especially as the man – and it’s always a man – was usually someone they trusted and loved: a parent, stepparent, uncle or teacher. Paradoxically, the more subtle the abuse – for example, a grandfather who became aroused when he held and moved his young granddaughter around on his lap – the greater the later self-recrimination. “I tell you, I didn’t like it, what he was doing, but just didn’t really understand. … I guess I just thought of it as something we did on Grandpa’s lap when we watched TV,” a 46-year-old homemaker told Clancy.

This co-opting of a child’s loyalty and “participation” is what prompts great distress in victims later, according to Clancy, by reinforcing their sense of culpability and isolation. She argues persuasively that, for most victims, we need to shift our concept of abuse from the violent rape model to something more varied and subtle if we want to succeed at treatment and prevention.

This is an unassailable goal. Still, the author has been the target of hate mail, shunning by colleagues (she now lives and works in Nicaragua) and vilification by advocates. Perhaps misled by the book’s title, and too angry to read it or consider its nuances, they erroneously believe she is condoning child abuse. Nothing could be further from the message of this book, which states plainly, over and over, that children are never at fault, that sexual abuse is always a crime and that the blame always rests with the adult.

“It did not matter that no force or aggression was used. The experiences were still horrible, and listening to the details filled me with fear, shock and revulsion. As an adult, I understood that the events occurring were sexual in nature, very wrong, and an egregious violation of a child’s rights,” she writes. Amen.

Susan Pinker is a psychologist whose recent book, The Sexual Paradox, was awarded the William James Book Prize by the American Psychological Association. Her next book is on the science of human relationships.

Pediatricain guilty of child sexual abuse

2010-02-24T08:12:00.000-08:00

http://www.hindu.com/2010/02/24/stories/2010022463951800.htm

Am highlighting this particular case not because of the number of child victims
( which according to the report is one of the highest ever reported in the US) but because of the profession of the perpetartor - a pediatrician. Without generalizing or casting aspersions there is enough documentation both anecdotal and research based which show that there are many people who chose professions which give them direct access to kids so then the proximity faciltates better the situations to abuse while at the same time giving the cover as well. It would be interesting to know if there are any guidelines that health professionals follow when examining a child - does a guardian/parent have to be present in the room? should there be another person like a nurse also be present? etc..
Am attaching the link to a case of an Irish pediatricain who is now being investigated for child abuse and who also has had links with a Children's Home in India
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0612/1224248687544.htmlSee moreThe

The Article 34 Awards

2010-02-15T00:31:00.000-08:00

From 2009 it has been decided the Article 34 Awards will no longer be presented annually, but will be awarded Bi annually.
However all applications recieved for The Third Annual Article 34 Awards in 2009 will continue to be eligible for the newly structured Bi annual Awards this year. Applicants are encouraged to send an update of their activities by Nov. 19, 2010 which will be added to their applications which are now on record

Oprah talks to child molesters

2010-02-09T22:17:00.000-08:00

http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Oprah-Talks-to-Child-Molesters-Part-1-Video/topic/oprahshow

http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Oprah-Talks-to-Child-Molestors-Part-2-Video/topic/oprahshow

http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Oprah-Talks-to-Child-Molesters-Part-3-Video/topic/oprahshow

watchoutkid.com

2010-01-31T07:03:00.000-08:00

Our latest iniative which will keep evolving

While rapid innovative advances in information and communications have created an exciting world for anyone with access to the related services and offered unparalleled opportunities, it has also had an immeasurable impact on the sexual exploitation of children
Various forums and groups randomly but routinely tend to report on adult content websites and the impact on children and young people accessing them. However there is hardly any scrutiny or understanding of an issue which warrants our immediate attention - online “grooming” of children and young people by potential child sex abusers leading to usually risky and dangerous situations - and which is now part of the recently amended IT Act.

We need to understand that at any given moment thousands of potential/child sex abusers are making contact online with unsuspecting children and young people, native and completely reliant on ICT’s, with the intention of further exploitation. And this situation though seemingly unimaginable is happening alarmingly on our doorsteps, in India. However considering the proliferation of the internet and telephony and ease of access, the demographics of the end user of the new technologies along with the socio-cultural milieu which frowns on healthy interpersonal interaction among young people, the platform new technologies offer are easy alternatives without an understanding of the potential risks and dangers involved.
This presents an even more alarming scenario with the Govt of India’s recent National Study on Child Abuse, indicating a high prevalence of sexual abuse, along with the fact that in 2009, India was placed 4th among internet users worldwide.
Issues of online exploitation such as cyberbullying, sexual victimization etc., are a wide-spread problem today, but are not fully understood or addressed. We believe that children and young people need to know more about the potential risks and threats online and how to deal with them, to be safe offline
No country is immune from this new form of child sexual exploitation, and while it will take a concerted effort from governments, law enforcement, and industry to ensure that the world’s children are protected, it is the civil society efforts that are fundamental in order to effectively address this growing phenomenon.

Please Disturb - And about time!!!

2010-01-09T23:36:00.000-08:00

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/78247/India/Hotels+and+airlines+to+fight+child+sex+tourism.html

Hotels, airlines to fight child sex tourism
New Delhi January 8, 2010
Hotels and airlines will no longer allow the use of the Internet on their premises by anyone searching for child pornography or sites that peddle child sex tourism.
If any of their employees is found helping tourists abuse children, these industries will ensure the workers are sacked and arrested. Besides, all employees will be trained to keep an eye on paedophiles.
These are some of the guidelines framed for the tourism industry to curb child sex tourism. The guidelines have been drawn up by Pacific Asia Travel Association's (PATA) India chapter and the ministry of tourism. Sources said state tourism departments will start implementing them in the next two months.
The guidelines also require the tourism industry to conduct all future businesses by introducing a clause in the contracts that will discourage sexual exploitation of children.
Sources said curbing child sex tourism, now a major industry not only in coastal tourist hubs but also in the religious towns of Orissa and Tamil Nadu, cannot be done by the police and NGOs alone. "Until hotels, tour operators and even airlines play an active role in curbing child abuse, the menace cannot be contained," a tourism ministry official said.
Several cases of child prostitution have been unearthed in India in recent years. Among them was the arrest of Albert Freddy Peats in Goa in 1991. He was charged with sexually exploiting children under the pretext of running a shelter for them. He was the first person in India to serve a life term for paedophilia.
Even the government agrees that in the pretext of drawing more tourists to the country, such cases were being brushed under the carpet.
The new guidelines will require tour operators, hoteliers and airlines to include information about the illegality of child abuse in their promotional brochures and other publicity materials

Of semantics and substance

2009-12-30T23:07:00.000-08:00

Why does an allegation have to be proved through a departmental enquiry before u report to police?
Isn't it their job to substantiate or disprove? Multiple enquiries only ensure the child victim is so many times more revictimied.
Why do we always go to inordinate lenghts to, at the expenseof the victim, establish beyond everybody's doubt concrete proof that there was molestation - AKA every other form of sexual violence which does not fall under the definition of rapeor sodomy??Why is that everyone is harping on little girls Are little boys also not molested?
Do abusers and molesters start and stop with one child?
Also the reasoning for the light senetence by the Judge is hilariosly ludicrous - especially when viewed aginst the alleged raunchy romps by octogenerain Governors. Forget an undesrtanding of senior citizen sexuality, how many of our ersthwhile judiciary are even aware of the complexities of sexual violence - rape trauma syndrome, post traumatic stress, grooming, why the majority of victims never disclose abuse,accomodation syndrome( the sole sole reason why a victim of child sexual absue can usually never present as the robust witness which the prosecution demands).
At the very least the Govt ha sto evolve child friendly proceedures which will enable the child and family to have the confidence to report.

And justice for all???

2009-12-21T07:21:00.000-08:00

After 19 years, former Haryana top cop jailed for molesting minor
Mon, Dec 21 06:13 PM
Chandigarh, Dec 21 (IANS) Former Haryana director general of police (DGP) S.P.S. Rathore was Monday sentenced to six months in prison in a 1990 case of molesting 14-year-old budding tennis player Ruchika Girhotra who committed suicide three years later.
Rathore was allowed bail by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court special judge J.S. Sidhu immediately after his sentencing.
The former DGP can now appeal before a higher court against the CBI court order. Sources close to Rathore said that he would appeal against his sentencing.
'The sentence is very less even though we are happy that he (Rathore) has been found guilty and sentenced by the court,' said retired Haryana government official Anand Prakash, whose daughter was the lone eyewitness to the Aug 12, 1990 molestation of Girhotra in Haryana's Panchkula town, 10 km from here.
Girhotra committed suicide three years after the incident in 1993 following continuous mental harassment of her and her family to pressurize them to withdraw the case against the Indian Police Service (IPS) officer.
Prakash said that the CBI court had failed to include the charge of abetment to suicide against Rathore, due to which he got a lesser term despite being held guilty.
Rathore was a deputy inspector general (DIG) of police at that time and was charged of molesting the minor girl in his office, when president of the Haryana Lawn Tennis Association (HLTA) in Panchkula.
Despite the molestation case against him, which was later probed by the CBI and was closely monitored by the Punjab and Haryana High Court, Rathore not only managed to escape punishment for over 19 years but was promoted all along by successive governments in Haryana till he became DGP (Oct 1999-Dec 2000).
A case was registered after much delay against Rathore for the molestation after Anuradha, then a teenaged friend of Ruchika who had seen the victim being molested, filed a complaint with the police through her parents. Both were budding tennis players when the molestation incident happened
Anuradha, 32 and now married, specially flew to India from Australia this month to be here when the judgment against Rathore came.
'Had he (Rathore) been punished earlier, Ruchika would have been amongst us,' Anand Prakash, who claimed that the Haryana police and other officials did everything to harass him, his daughter and family to withdraw the case against Rathore, said.
'Now that the court has held him guilty, we will approach the high court against those officials who played a part with him,' he added.
Rathore was represented in his trial by his wife, Abha Rathore, and other lawyers.
Ruchika's family was harassed so much in their Panchkula home that they shifted to an undisclosed location in neighbouring Punjab after her death.
Indo Asian News Service

Press Information Bureau of India- UNICEF - Tulir Invitation

2009-12-09T03:13:00.000-08:00

A Shrinking World: Changing Realities - Technology and Travel facilitated Sexual Violence against Children

While rapid innovative advances in information and communications have created an exciting, new world for anyone with access to the related services, it has also had an immeasurable impact on the sexual exploitation of children. When the borderless worlds created by communications and technology intersect with crime, the associated offenses cannot be but transnational in nature .A spate of recent incidents related to sexual crimes against children occurring in an international arena but with an Indian dimension, is ample testimony that this fundamental violation of childhood is not being ignored by global trends .
This also operates within the context of the “Push down Pop up” effect- A term coined to describe an increasing trend of travel to India among registered child sex abusers by alarmed law enforcement from source countries, largely because of the strengthened response of Sri Lanka, Thailand and Philippines to halting TSO’s in their sexually abusive journeying. This development is perhaps with the realization among the well informed constantly updated offender networks that sexual crimes against children is not considered a significant issue at the moment in India in terms of the understanding the processes of such crime, the lack of appropriate laws and investigating protocols which are not specialized. Needless to state there is no dearth of vulnerable children, in India to groom and exploit which TSO's seem to be aware of, considering the NGO facilitated route many of those recently arrested have taken.
To highlight the issue and in an effort to sensitise the media on the issue, Press Information Bureau, in association with Tulir - Centre for the Prevention & Healing of Child Sexual Abuse - and UNICEF, organized a Media Interaction Session on Thursday the 10th December 2009.

The Fourth Annual Tulir - CPHCSA Lecture

2009-12-05T22:18:00.000-08:00

Hon'ble Dr Arijit Pasayat, Judge, Supreme Court (Retd) was the keynote speaker with the Hon'ble Shri H. L.Gokhale presiding.Sat. Dec 5, 2009. 5pm. Freemasons Hall, Ethiraj Salai, Chennai 600 008.
“Improving the Experiences of the Child Victim in the Criminal Justice System” was chosen as the topic of The Lecture as an outcome of the realities many of our cases encounter. Two examples are
The defense taking exception to a 7 year old child who indicated with her hand her breast as the area which was touched by the accused.
A 13 year old special needs child who was gang raped by a child in conflict with law as well as adults, committed suicide as she and her family could not handle the difficulties of giving evidence in two separate courts
Nowhere in the world was the Criminal Justice System(CJS) written with a child victim in mind. Having to face the criminal justice system that is geared to the needs of adults can be a difficult experience for any victim of crime. When it comes to child victims and witnesses the experience can be doubly traumatic, thereby seriously undermining the full respect of the rights of the child. At the very least it can be intimidating.While only a minuscule number of affected children and their families are formally within the purview of the criminal justice system (CJS), increasing engagement indicates deficiencies with respect to current systems and processes, making it necessary for an examination and improvement. As one of the children in a case Tulir is assisting said “I feel like I am in a washing machine, first being spun around and then all wrung out, ready to dry”.
The implications of not having evolved ( since the 19th century) procedures to address this oversight unlike other countries( including other Commonwealth countries) does not work in favor of instilling a sense of confidence in families and the community to report so that the gap between prevalence and reporting can be narrowed. Furthermore it continues to undermine the abusive experiences of children and its impact while emboldening perpetrators. It is therefore imperative and urgent for more concerted efforts to work towards a more just and efficacious justice delivery system that would allow child victims/witnesses to truly realize their rights as enshrined in the Constitution of India and the Convention on Rights of the Child, besides other International instruments to which India is a signatory.

At whose expense? At what cost?

2009-11-27T04:25:00.000-08:00

There is usually no evidence. There are usually no witnesses. But, doubtlessly there is always doubt!
Sifting fact from fiction, whether and how an allegation of child sexual abuse remains just that or is substantiated ... its the same old script every time........ just different characters ...... and everywhere!
After the screening at 6.30 pm, Dec.1, 2009, we would like to you to join the discussion!
South India Film Chamber Auditorium, Chennai

Driving home the point!

2009-11-24T12:30:00.000-08:00

A Van Display which halts at stratergic locations across Chennai and Bus Panels has resulted in a spate of calls to Tulir - ranging from curiosity to information seeking to catharisizing to requests for help.

Walk your Voice - An Update

2009-11-24T12:03:00.000-08:00

The slogans said it all!

Padmashri Sudha Ragunathan tookthe first step to break the silence.Nov. 15, 20094pmMarina Beach

Despite the constant drizzle which occasionally turned into sharp showers and a chill breeze ( it occasionally does happen in Chennai!) it was heartening to see the
number of concerned citizens who walked their voice

Engaging bystanders to take a proactive role!

It certainly takes a community to protect a child!

Street Theatre Performance against CSA

2009-11-24T11:26:00.000-08:00

As part of creating a wider awareness around the the World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse,Tulir – Centre for the Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse is organizing a street theatre performance by Unarvugal at the Independence Day Park, near Valluvar Kottam, Nungambakkam on Nov 25, 2009. The performance was inaugurated by Mr. Pasupati, cine actor.

NOT SEEN, NOT HEARD

2009-11-23T11:36:00.000-08:00

U S. Consulate General-Chennai
TULIR – Centre for the Prevention & Healing of Child Sexual Abuse
“The Madras Film Society” & “Indo Cine Appreciation Foundation”
present

NOT SEEN, NOT HEARD

A film festival to mark “World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse”

Sleepers
Director: Barry Levinson
Color/1996/147 minutes

Four boys growing up in Hell's Kitchen play a prank that leads to an old man getting hurt. Sentenced to no less than one year in the Wilkenson Center in upstate New York, the four friends are changed by the beating, humiliation and sexual abuse by the guards sworn to protect them. Thirteen years later a random meeting leads to a chance for revenge against the Wilkenson Center and the guards.

Date/Time: Saturday, November 28, 2009 at 11:00 a.m.
Venue: American Library, U.S. Consulate, Gemini Circle, Chennai.

Antwone Fisher
Director: Denzel Washington
Color/2002/120 minutes
A sailor prone to violent outbursts is sent to a naval psychiatrist for help. Refusing at first to open up, the young man eventually breaks down and reveals a horrific childhood. Through the guidance of his doctor, he confronts his painful past and begins a quest to find the family he never knew.

Date/Time: Saturday, November 28, 2009 at 2:00 p.m.
Venue: American Library, U.S. Consulate, Gemini Circle, Chennai.

Screenings will be followed by a panel discussion

Police roll out red carpet for school students

2009-11-20T08:07:00.000-08:00

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Petlee Peter

As part of ‘World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse’

Photo: S.Thanthoni

Inquisitive LOT: Police officers interacting with a group of school students at the Kolathur police station on Thursday. —

CHENNAI: Hundreds of students from various schools in the city visited police stations on Thursday as part of an interaction organised as part of the ‘World Day for the Prevention of Child Cbuse’ by the Chennai Police in association with Tulir — Centre for the Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse.

From 10 a.m. the stations started receiving the students, many of whom were eager to know about the working of the force. Details of various crimes, wireless communication system, traffic rules and even the weapons police personnel use were provided to them.

The students asked a range of questions from how challenging the job was, corruption, and the alleged nexus between police personnel and criminals.

S. Shylaja of Everwin Matriculation Higher Secondary School, who went to the Kolathur station with nearly 20 schoolmates, was excited after seeing a pair of handcuffs. The Class VIII student said that her idea of police stations seen in films changed after the visit. “I even touched a pistol and cartridges.”

Commissioner of Police T. Rajendran, who met students of Pachyappas School at the Flower Bazaar station, said the students’ day out would help break stereotypes of policemen. “We threw open our stations to students to show that police are their friends and not foes. I’m sure the children loved the experience.”

While several of the students gave different reasons on why they want to join the police, one boy said he wanted to serve people.

Senior police officers, including Joint Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners, interacted with the students in their respective police districts. In some stations, such as Mambalam and Kodambakkam, the students were surprised when they got pencils, geometry boxes, notebooks and dictionaries as gifts, besides snacks.

Sixty of the students would be shortlisted through an elocution competition and would get a chance to spend a day in the Commissionerate on November 25.

http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/20/stories/2009112058970300.htm

Do you dare to care beyond the academic inputs your school offers its children?

2009-11-20T05:48:00.000-08:00

With a large part of the truly “awake” time of a child’s waking hours being spent at school, schools are at the frontline of child protection. They have the potential to both teach protective behaviors effectively and to a greater number of children than any other system, including parental instructions.

As part of a collective effort and concern to ensure every child ‘s right to be safe all the time from sexual abuse Tulir – Centre for the Prevention & Healing of Child Sexual Abuse launched the "Daring to Care" campaign on Nov 19^th World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse. All that the campaign involves is the distribution of the flyer "Smart Ways to be Safe" to the parents/ students of the primary classes.

The flyers were launched and distributed by Mr. Rajesh Lakhoni, I.A.S, Commissioner, Corporation of Chennai at 10am at MGR Nagar , Corporation Primary School.

40,000 children from the 111 corporation primary schools will receive the personal safety flyers printed by the Corporation of Chennai. It is based on the concepts of Personal Safety Education a program, which is an extension of the safety, rules we teach our children, i.e. don’t play with fire, look both sides before and while crossing a road, etc.

The campaign is open to all schools. Call 26192026 for further information

Keeping Children safe - technology facilitated sexual violence against children

2009-11-19T23:17:00.000-08:00

http://sify.com/news/specials/child_abuse/

The Article 34 Awards

2009-11-12T23:00:00.000-08:00

The last date for reciept of completed applications has been extended to Nov. 28, 2009

Walk Your Voice

2009-11-07T00:57:00.000-08:00

Join us at a Rally against Child Sexual Abuse
Nov 15, 2009
Gandhi statue to Labour staue, Marina Beach, Chennai 4.oo pm.
Sexual abuse of children is frightening, often unimaginable & an abhorrent crime. Deafening silence is the hallmark. While it's the moral obligation for adults to ensure children are protected, we remain silent. More often than not for plain selfish reasons. The discomfort caused if acknowledged, the denial that our children can be sexually abused, family reputation at stake, sheer naiveté. Then there’s the quietness of the children. Because of the manipulation, ignorance, fear.
A silenced vulnerable child & a silent non-protective environment-working to an abuser’s advantage. Since usually victims are their relatives, neighbors, students, friends etc.
While in India we are just beginning to acknowledge the existence of abuse, Tulir has the belief & audacity of hope that it won't be long that the larger community realizes the prevalence, dynamics & subsequent impact. The sabotage of a child’s right to a childhood. The often less than optimally led lives as adults.
A a society’s integrity & worth is not based on whether cases of sexual abuse exist. Instead it's based on the acceptance of the possibilities & proactive steps taken to respond in a timely & appropriate way to ensure that its children may benefit from its caring & foresight to truly have the right to be safe all the time, everywhere. After all, there is no excuse for child sexual abuse!

For men who have had unwanted or abusive experiences

2009-11-03T22:06:00.000-08:00

http://www.1in6.org/
Helping men who’ve had unwanted or abusive sexual experiences in childhood live healthier, happier lives. Serving their partners, family and friends too.

Tulir is now listed on Give India

2009-10-28T09:59:00.000-07:00

http://www.giveindia.org/give/pledgepage/PreventionofChildSexualAbuse

Nov 19 - World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse

2009-10-24T05:31:00.000-07:00

NOW is as good as any other time.The Children cannot wait. Any longer!!
"It is not what you know, think or feel that matters ultimately. It is what you do that defines you."

Show. Wear a yellow bow to indicate your solidarity and support to prevent child abuse.

Learn. Knowledge is power. Only when you know more about child rights and child sexual abuse can you help ensure the safety of children in your family, your neighborhood and your community

Examine. Be conscious of your own role in allowing abuse to happen
Talk. Talk to your colleagues, friends, relatives and family . Help break the silence around child sexual abuse.

Educate. Teach children the Touching Rules. That they have a right to be safe all the time, anywhere, with anyone from child sexual abuse

Encourage. Support Awarness activities and prevention programmes. Too often intervention occurs only after abuse is reported.

Observe. Be alert to the behavioral and physical indicators of sexual abuse in children. Don't just hear children's voices Listen to them.
Help. If you suspect a child of being abused, seek assistance from individuals, organizations authorities to ensure the child's safety . It takes time but it is worth it- Every child matters everywhere!
Advocate. Ask your child's school to incorporate personal safety curriculum and to implement a school child protection policy. If you are supporting a Children's Home ensure they follow and adhere as well.
Contact. Tulir-CPHCSA can organize talks/workshops for your school, organization or community. We can also guide you to similar organizations nearest you
Involve. Volunteer your time and resources to organizations working against child sexual abuse.

Nov. 19 - World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse

2009-10-24T05:27:00.000-07:00

A Wake up Call - The Countdown has begun!!!

Alerting Governments and civil society organizations to play a more active role in the promotion of and respect for the rights of the child (article 19 and 34 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child), and contribute to the prevention of child abuse, WWSF (www.woman.ch) launched in 2000 the World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse, a Day to be commemorated every 19 November in synergy with the anniversary of the International Day for the rights of the child (20 November) which has as its objective to be a rallying point around the issue of child abuse and the need for urgent effective prevention programs. The World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse is a process for the emergence of a culture of prevention around the issue of violence against girls and boys. Alerting Governments, civil society organizations and concerned citizens to play a more active role in the respect, promotion and fulfillment of rights of all children and contribute to the prevention of violence against children, the World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse is commemorated every 19th November. Since sustained advocacy and activity is required in order to build societal commitments for child safety and protection, it is imperative to expand the process by reaching out to as many people to rally for a collective stand towards zero tolerance towards child abuse. With less than a month to work towards this goal, please do plan activities to create and increase awareness that “all violence against children is preventable and no violence against children is justifiable”.

Child Sexual Abuse does not happen in a vaccum

2009-10-18T10:05:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: http://www.equalitynow.org/english/actions/action_3302_en.html
Japan -Rape Simulator Games & the Normalization of Sexual Violence
_______________________________________________________________
http://www.mg.co.za:80/article/2009-05-08-software-firm-shrugs-off-rape-game-protests
TOKYO, JAPAN May 08 2009
Japanese computer game maker dismissed a protest by US rights campaigners against the game RapeLay, which lets players simulate sexual violence against women.
New York-based Equality Now launched a campaign this week "against rape simulator games and the normalisation of sexual violence in Japan".It urged activists to write in protest to the maker and Prime Minister Taro Aso, arguing the game breaches Japan's obligations under the 1985 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.The Yokohama-based games manufacturer Illusion brushed off the campaign."We are simply bewildered by the move," said spokesperson Makoto Nakaoka. "We make the games for the domestic market and abide by laws here. We cannot possibly comment on [the campaign] because we don't sell them overseas."Players earn points for acts of sexual violence, including stalking girls on commuter trains, raping virgins and their mothers, and forcing females to get abortions, according to the group's online statement.Japan, often criticised as a major producer of childpornography, in 1999 banned the production, distribution and commercial use of sexually arousing photos, videos and other materials involving those aged under 18.However, the law did not criminalise possession of such materials, and the ban also failed to cover child porn in animation and computer graphics, often categorised as "hentai" [pervert].US online retail giant Amazon in February took RapeLay off its websites after receiving complaints but clips of the game were still available this week on popular video sharing websites.A Japan Committee for UNICEF spokesperson said the Japanese loophole hindered international efforts to crack down on child porn."In this globalised world, connected via the internet, even one loophole could jeopardise all the regulations," she said. "The world trend is to try to ban even the accessing and looking at websites of virtual images."A spokesperson for the Japanese government's gender equality bureau said the office "realises the problem is there"."While we recognise that some sort of measures need to be taken, the office is currently studying what can be done," she said. - AFP

The Article 34 Awards

2009-10-11T03:54:00.000-07:00

Article 34 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child -

"States Parties undertake to protect the child from all forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse.
For these purposes, States Parties shall in particular take all appropriate national, bilateral and
multilateral measures to prevent:
(a) The inducement or coercion of a child to engage in any unlawful sexual activity;
(b) The exploitative use of children in prostitution or other unlawful sexual practices;
(c) The exploitative use of children in pornographic performances and materials"

The awards:
The awards have been instituted by Tulir-CPHCSA with an aim to affirm, support and celebrate efforts that strengthen every child’s right to be safe from sexual violence, as enshrined in Article 34 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The awards for the year 2009 will be presented to

(a) An organization (government or non-government)
(b) An individual in her/his professional capacity
who have worked substantially in addressing concerns relating to sexual violence against children.

The awards are open to not only NGOs and activists, but also to organizations and professionals working in the fields of media, health, tourism, education, police, law, corporate sector etc. Any efforts in the direction of children’s right to protection from sexual violence will be considered.

The process:
To apply, the applicants will have to complete and send an application form latest by Nov .12, 2009. The awards will be based on the activities of the applying organization or individual in the last two years. The awardees will be selected from among the received applications by a panel of judges appointed by Tulir-CPHCSA. The awards are non-monetary, and will be given to organizations and individuals working in India only.

Tulir - Centre for the Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse is a registered, non-government, non-profit organization committed to working against child sexual abuse in India.
Our objectives are:
To support and participate in local, national and international efforts to promote and protect the rights of the child.
To raise awareness on child sexual abuse.
To work towards improving policy and advancing practice to prevent and address cases of child sexual abuse with a special emphasis on the psychosocial well being of children.
To provide direct intervention services in the areas of prevention and healing of child sexual abuse.
To undertake research, documentation, and dissemination of information on child sexual abuse

For an application form and further details, write to article34@gmail.com

Surviving Child Abuse

2009-10-10T08:25:00.000-07:00

Harish Iyer is one of the research subjects in a movie on child sex abuse being made by Onir

(Photo: ALIEFYA VAHANVATY)
http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/true-life/surviving-child-abuse
I was seven years old when it started. I was at a relative’s home. His wife was also there. As always, he wanted to give me a bath. He soaped me to a rich lather and suddenly started playing with my penis. I didn’t know how to react, but didn’t mind it. I think it felt nice, though weird. He asked me to do the same to him and I obliged. He then asked me to suck his penis. I was repelled by it. He forced his penis into my mouth. I moved away and started crying loudly. He told me that he would kill me and everyone in his family if I didn’t shut up. He then asked me to suck his penis again and this time, I did it till he spurted on my face. There was a knock at the door then. It was his wife. “I will be back in a while,” she said from outside. He lifted and took me out. He pushed me on the cot, turned me around and then raped me. He continued to rape me for 11 more years.All my childhood I lived a dual life—the life when I was being abused, and the life when I wasn’t. It dictated my very being. It was years of continuous abuse, years of pain, years of breach with not a single soul to reach out to. I bled from my anus often, and once did gather the courage to tell mom. And she thought it was because of the summer heat. I don’t blame her now. She was completely ignorant about the fact that male children are susceptible to sexual abuse and need to be protected. I became reserved though I did have friends—a tree that was beside my house, the chirping birds, the flies, the ants, the lizards, all were mine, and I loved them immensely. With them, I blabbered. Anything to be myself in.At school, I never had a male friend until the eighth standard. I never trusted a man. I couldn’t understand the growing-up phenomenon. I wondered often why boys touch each other and speak, why they play the ‘beat the butt’ game… it was all distasteful for me. There was this experimental streak in them that I never could understand or relate to. I thought the girls were much more comfortable with their bodies. They discussed and spoke to each other about breasts and their undergarments. Boys lived in the realm of fantasy.I never fantasised about men or women as I grew up. I was completely asexual. I was very body conscious. I thought my body was disfigured by constant abuse. I couldn’t bear to be seen from the rear. As a result, I would chicken out from anything that made me stand first in the row, showing my rear to the rest. My constrained body posture made me walk shaking my butt, which people thought was typically girlish.When I shifted from school to college, I would get some fantasies about pleasurable sex with boys. But I thought this was because of my abuse and tried forcing my mind to think of girls. But the fact remains that until I reached college, I didn’t have a thought of a guy or a girl. No sexual fantasy whatsoever. Yes, my mind was replete with curious questions about anatomy and reproduction. But no sexual fantasy as such. I felt hatred and resentment towards anything that was masculine. I found it rather weird that I was getting these sexual thoughts about men and was dreaming about the very penises that I dreaded.Meanwhile, in this battle of self-discovery, I confessed about my sexual abuse to a friend. Instead of keeping the confidence, he spread the news. Soon, the walls of the college and the toilet signboards had my name. They didn’t see it as sexual abuse. For them, it was fun gay sex. I became a symbol of ridicule. This was a time when I didn’t even know if I was gay or straight or whatever. But I got branded as gay, because ‘I had sex’ with my relative. I tried to commit suicide, but survived.This was a time when I became friends with a dog named Jimmy. I used to lock myself in the room with him and cry out to him. The closer I got to Jimmy and confided in him, the stronger I felt. Even now, I was living two lives, the life in which I was being abused, and the life in which I was not. But the line dividing the two was diminishing. I became aware of what was happening to me. My problem was not that I faced pain during the abuse; it was that I felt nothing. I would lie like a log of wood. I was absolutely nihilistic. But now it was getting difficult, as I was gaining consciousness from my trance. I was understanding what pain feels like. Every day was getting worse, a thousand revolting voices rang in my mind.One day, the revolution took definite form. My relative pounced on me, and I kicked him. My eyes were red and bloodshot, and I ground my teeth and said ‘NO’. A loud and clear ‘NO’. This is all that it took to end this ordeal. Once and forever.Because of Jimmy, I started speaking up slowly for animal rights. I then started standing up for myself. And the slander campaign in college helped me because I had nothing to hide now. The college, in fact, helped as it saw a spark in me, and soon I was on stage performing and letting myself loose. I found recognition, and support, and decided to speak up. I make it a point now to speak about this taboo topic. Sadly, but not to my surprise, I have found many more boys open up to me in anonymity—the ‘sailing in the same boat’ syndrome. I help them as much as I can and later direct them to psychotherapists, though I don’t feel they follow up.Meanwhile, I realised that I was getting attracted to men. I always thought it was because of abuse, but then I realised that when I was being abused, I never felt sexual. I did have sexual relations with a girl, consensual of course. And realised that I don’t feel for females sexually. I couldn’t marry a girl to just prove that I am not a result of my past. I finally realised that I was naturally gay. I ventured, I Googled—people in support groups like Gay Bombay helped me realise that there is a big gay world and being so was normal. My parents accepted me the way I am.I am 30 now. It has taken me years to comprehend that I am not a remnant of my past. And that was when I stopped ‘growing from’ and started ‘growing into’. I have made a conscious decision to speak about child sexual abuse, because ignorance about sex abuse didn’t help me. And the one who wrote ‘ignorance is bliss’ had the dictum working for him. I cannot be him.

FACSE invitation

2009-10-10T03:31:00.000-07:00

Forum Against Child Sexual Exploitation (FACSE) invities you for a play "Yoneechyaa Maneechya Gujgoshti", a Marathi translation of the internationally acclaimed play The Vagina Monologues. FACSE believes that anyone interested in working or understanding the issues of sexual abuse needs to also comprehend related issues of sex and sexuality. Being in Marathi, it will also allow a connection to a much wider audience.
Date: 27th October, 2009 Time: 7:30 to 9:30 pm
Venue: Mini Theatre, 3rd Floor, P.L. Deshpande Maharashtra Kala Academy,Near Ravindra Natya Mandir, Sayani Road, Prabhadevi, Mumbai 400 025
As there are limited seats, kindly R.S.V.P by 20th October 09 at facse95@gmail. com or Ms. Ketki (Coordinator) : 9820996223 or 022- 23002683.

Working with sex offenders on parole

2009-09-27T03:27:00.000-07:00

Read the article at
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/us/27parole.html?_r=1
View the slide show at
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/09/27/us/0927PAROLE_index.html

The Importance of Semantics - Safe and Unsafe vs Right and Wrong or Good and Bad

2009-09-22T04:45:00.000-07:00

Our take on the terminology used as part of prevention programs. We understand that the terms "Good Touch" and "Bad Touch" “Right and Wrong Touch” has often been used to help children understand these concepts, and such usage has been in existence in various countries as well. Very often, in India as well, child rights organisations often use the vocabulary of good/bad touch and right/wrong touch to refer to different kinds of touch. However, we at Tulir tend to use a different approach. We refer to these touches as "Safe Touch", "Unsafe Touch" and "Confusing Touch". The reason behind this approach is, that we feel "good" and "bad" , “right and wrong” are absolute terms, having strong connotations. When we teach children about "bad or wrong touch", it does not guarantee that they will never receive such "bad touch". In the unfortunate incident of them receiving such "bad" touch, they may associate such experience with the connotative value of the word, thereby tending to believe that because they have received "bad" touch, they themselves are "bad", "impure", "defiled", "dirty" etc. However, the words "safe" and "unsafe" are neutral (or relatively neutral), and therefore may not lead to such negative feelings in children's mind when encountered with an experience of this sort. Also, these terms put the onus of responsibility on the person who gives the touch ("s/he made me feel unsafe"), thereby pre-empt the possibility of the child blaming himself/herself for the act. There is more likelihood of children reporting an “unsafe touch” than a “bad or wrong touch” for the reasons as well. Moreover, children may confuse the word "good" with it's culturally defined connotative value, and may confuse it with "pleasure". However, "pleasurable touch" may not always and necessarily be a "good touch". In order to address these concerns, we use "safe", "unsafe" and "confusing" as opposed to other similar terms, even though in principle we are referring to the same concept.

An Invitation from Tulir

2009-09-18T09:41:00.000-07:00

This is the Hindi version of Tickles and Hugs- Learning the Touching Rules

Survivor, Perpetrator, Mother - First person accounts

2009-09-03T19:11:00.000-07:00

Alankaar, one of Tulir's co-founders and currently a doctoral student is a co-author.
Child Sexual Abuse: Child Survivors, Mothers, and Perpetrators Tell Their Stories
Based upon interviews with survivors, perpetrators, and mothers, this book answers questions that many people have. The book is still in progress and so you can read it for free.
http://www.lulu.com/content/1823038

2009-08-10T00:55:00.000-07:00

‘Challenges of Addressing
Sexual Violence against Children
in the Criminal Justice System’

Panel Discussion organised by

Tulir-Centre For The Prevention & Healing of Child Sexual Abuse

& Jan Ugahi

With
School of Excellence in Law,
The Tamil Nadu Dr.Ambedkar Law University
On

August 11, 2009

At

School of Excellence in Law, The Tamil Nadu Dr.Ambedkar Law University, Chennai

www.outlookindia.com | Rose Garden Predators

2009-07-26T07:50:00.001-07:00

www.outlookindia.com | Rose Garden Predators

Shared via AddThis

Joy of Giving - Tulir would appreciate your support

2009-07-25T05:07:00.000-07:00

TULIR - CENTRE FOR THE PREVENTION & HEALING OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE

INVITES YOU TO

THE BATTLE OF THE BUFFET ON 1ST OCTOBER 2009

A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY TO SUPPORT OUR CAUSE IN THE JOY OF GIVING WEEK

We are delighted to invite you to participate in the Battle of the Buffet. This event completely sponsored by Oriental Cuisines, brings you a lavish spread of the buffets from Chennai’s top 5 star restaurants on Oct. 1, 2009. The evening will also see celebrities endorsing and participating in the event.

About the Joy of Giving Week(http://www.joyofgivingweek.org/)

Joy of Giving Week is a special week which aims to bring people, from all walks of life, together to get involved with a cause(s) of their choice. It will be a concerted effort across companies, celebrities, business heads, NGOs, schools, colleges, and the ‘general public’, to create a movement of “giving”. The Week is slated from September 27- October 3, 2009, and we expect more than 1 crore Indians from all over India to participate and get engaged in "acts of giving".

About the event

· A gala evening of fun, food and entertainment completely sponsored by the Oriental Cuisines.
· No event related costs to us
· 100% of what we raise goes to our organisation
· We need to reach out to at least 20 people like you to be able to participate in this event.

How can you help?

We are seeking a donation of Rs 5000 to us which will entitle you to one place in the Battle of the Buffet. All donations must be raised through cheques favouring GiveIndia only
which Tulir will make arrangements to collect and forward to GiveIndia. We would apprecaite your confirmation ASAP.
Demand drafts or cash will not be accepted. GiveIndia will provide 80G receipts in the name of the donors
The pass will be delivered to you at least two weeks prior to the event..
It would be great if you could also pass this on to other friends and contacts who maybe interested in helping our organization work towards every child’s right to be safe all the time from child sexual abuse

For any queries you may revert to us at tulircphcsa@yahoo.co.in or +44+26192026
Tulir - Center for the Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse is a registered non-profit Trust, based in Chennai, committed to working against child sexual abuse (CSA) in India, since August 2004.
Preventing and healing child sexual abuse require equal parts of caring, optimism and pragmatism. We must care deeply for our children, be optimistic about human being's capabilities for change and be pragmatic how to work with children and the larger community to bring about positive transformation. Since caring and optimism already reside within the majority of people Tulir focuses on the pragmatic - how to translate the abstract notions of prevention and healing into a blueprint for action
The five broad areas of activity are Personal Safety Education - a direct prevention initiative with children and which includes online safety, Healing and Intervention, Advocacy, Training, Research and Networking
Tulir believes a society's integrity and worth is not based on the quantum of cases which exist but the proactive steps taken to respond in a timely and appropriate way to ensure that its children may benefit from its caring and foresight, to truly have the right to be safe all the time from sexual abuse.
After all, it takes a community to protect a child.

Child rights panel opposes any dilution of Section 377

2009-07-20T03:47:00.000-07:00

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS-City-Delhi-Child-rights-panel-opposes-any-dilution-of-Section-377/articleshow/4790729.cms
NEW DELHI: The Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) has come out strongly against the dilution of provisions criminalising gay

sex. The commission has expressed concern that the dilution of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code can have a "serious impact" on the emotional and sexual behaviour of children and adolescents in the country. Referring to the recent Delhi High Court order that legalised gay sex, DCPCR said it also opposed "deletion" of Section 377 of IPC and had sent its views to the Union home and law ministries. "The definition of consensual and non-consensual sex may get blurred in some cases. Moreover, the judgment says anyone above 18 is an adult and can give consent in such cases. But there are adolescents who may be 18 years old but do not have the adequate decision-making ability," DCPCR chairperson Amod Kanth said on Friday. Kanth maintained that Section 377 is the lone provision under which sexual offences against children are covered. "There is no case of prosecution of gay couples since one case was reported in 1935," he said. The DCPCR said the implications of the ruling will have be to examined thoroughly as it is likely to "seriously impact the physical, psychological, emotional and sexual behaviour of children and adolescents in India."

SC takes lenient view of 65-yr-old paedophile

2009-07-19T21:01:00.001-07:00

SC takes lenient view of 65-yr-old paedophile

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Sec 377 with regard to child sexual abuse

2009-07-13T04:43:00.000-07:00

http://epaper.expressbuzz.com/NE/NE/2009/07/11/ArticleHtmls/11_07_2009_372_002.shtml?Mode=1

Tulir Annual Public Workshop

2009-07-13T01:14:00.000-07:00

Tulir’s Sixth Annual Public Workshop - “An Overview and Understanding of working against Child Sexual Abuse”, will be held on August 17 & 18, 2009 at Chennai. The cost of the workshop which will be in Tamil is Rs.1500/per person. Vegetarian lunch, tea and workshop materials will be provided. Registration is limited to the first 40 persons against advance payment and will close by Aug. 5, 2009.
For registration, please contact tulircphcsa@yahoo.co.in or call 26192026 (10 am – 6 pm, Monday – Friday)

The workshop would give a basic understanding of CSA by discussing the various aspects of the crime and their convergence to form a composite picture. This would lay the foundation on which participants could develop a knowledge base to further work on the subject of child protection either in terms of policy planning and program development or skill enhancement. In the absence of specialized training it would also assist participants to respond to cases of CSA appropriately within their capacities/roles. The workshop outcomes would be an increased awareness of child sexual abuse, its causes, victims, effects, and strategies for prevention, effective responses, and most importantly, an understanding that child sexual abuse is not only a problem for the victim, but is also a problem for the entire community.

Tulir now on Facebook

2009-07-11T05:39:00.000-07:00

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tulir-Centre-for-the-Prevention-and-Healing-of-Child-Sexual-Abuse/218744945320?ref=mf