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You may be a parent, an employee or an employer. It is very much important that we are aware how to tackle situations like Child Abuse, if it happens around us.
Child Abuse
Here are some guidelines by NIMHANS Bangalore.
National Institute of Mental Health And Neuro-Sciences has sent an advisory to schools, parents, police and media to enable them to deal with a case of child sex abuse, in the right way.
Many a times, schools and parents do not know how to deal with Child Sexual Abuse (CSA). The result is delayed complaints / no complaints, destruction of concrete evidence unknowingly, not caring for the identity and dignity of the child enough, insensitive media coverage etc., which come in the way of delivering justice and to the traumatised child and family and getting their life back on track.
National Institute of Mental Health And Neuro-Sciences (NIMHANS) has prepared an advisory which has many important points to be taken care of by everyone.
Need for a child-centric response to CSA
The continual reporting of child sexual abuse (CSA) by media, in the context of many recent events raises the challenge of how to tackle the national menace of this ‘silent violent epidemic’. A critical aspect of child protection, also a child public health issue, CSA warrants systemic approaches that are uncompromisingly child-centric.
Part of this has to do with preventive programs in schools and other childcare agencies. Focus on prevention has the potential to reduce sexual victimization and even sexual offences in the general population. However, when an event occurs, it is addressed by systems of criminal justice, police, schools, families, and healthcare, which generate a flurry of incoherent activity, albeit in good faith, thereby compromising the child’s best interests.
The major emphasis of these activities are directed towards the child ‘victim’ through enquiry, interrogation and intrusive detailing of the event to verify it and then bring the perpetrator to book. The balance between the need for justice and empowered rehabilitation of the child becomes precarious. There is thus an urgent need to develop a protocol-based systemic response ensuring that the child’s agenda i.e. healing and recovery, is at the core of it.
Over the past year, the Department of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry at NIMHANS has received several children with CSA issues. When they come for help, they are extremely overwhelmed after visits to the Child Welfare Committee, police station, the hospital; by then, the child has been subjected to questioning on multiple occasions and therefore to re-traumatization.
There are many areas which have to be systematically addressed namely, the child’s reaction to the abuse, ensuring the child’s immediate safety, medical and mental health needs of the child, the concerns of the family, including social stigma. On the other hand, there is a sense of urgency to in legal procedures. Towards this, there is an understandable emphasis by the police on evidence and enquiry processes and related pressure from media and civil society, raising questions on the timely nature and effectiveness of these processes.
What a child-centric response entails:
Based on our experience, NIMHANS believes that planned, protocol-based, comprehensive and sensitive care should be provided at all stages of intervention to victimized children. The primary goal is to create a system of investigation which is child friendly and in accordance with principles of child rights and protection.
Where can families go for help?
Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2013 (POCSO) mandates that the child be provided with emergency medical services (EMS) within 24 hours of filing the FIR. EMS are provided by state Registered Medical Practitioners (RMP) in government hospitals (Vani Vilas and Indira Gandhi Institute of Child health) and only in absence of such an agency should the child be referred to other sectors. Where the Special Juvenile Police Units (SJPU) work in collaboration with government hospitals, the detailed enquiry can be completed in one sitting rather than the child being interviewed multiple times.
Once the medical examination is done and there is medical evidence, what the Dept. of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, NIMHANS can offer is combined therapeutic and forensic interviewing to assist both the healing of the child and the necessary justice processes. This interviewing is done based on existing international protocols which are child-sensitive and can stand the scrutiny of court procedures.
In children with symptoms, we work through trauma by encouraging expression of feelings regarding the abuse, validating experiences, and teaching personal safety. In very young children, this is done through art and play work. We offer social interventions in order to help the family cope with the consequences of abuse, also facilitating liaison with the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), Centre for Child and Law (CCL) and legal aid services as necessary.
It is important for parents to not ignore or undermine a child’s statements and innocuous remarks. When in doubt it would be prudent to corroborate the information from various sources. An open, supportive stance, assuming a position that child is right would be helpful to facilitate further disclosure on abuse. It would be judicious to err on the side of caution especially in face of long term consequences of CSA. It is also important not to blame the child. The support given by the parent helps in facilitating better healing of the victimized child.
School’s response
Preventive workshops, personal safety workshop, life skills education can help as preventive strategies. However, when an incident takes place the system should have a clear protocol for response. This protocol should entail the following:
Whether the CSA incident occurs within or outside the school premises, by school staff or others, especially if a child reports to anyone in the school, the school’s position must be one of acknowledgement and involvement.
Every school must have a pre-set response plan which should include:
An identified person (known to the children) who can respond in a sensitive and gentle manner to alleged instances of abuse reported by the child.
A next-level reporting authority (such as the principal) who will inform the parents.
The school should guide and make available to parents the first level medical and other facilities to seek assistance (described above).
Unless the school has a trained counselor or CSA expert, it should not attempt to interrogate the child. This needs to be done by trained experts, preferably in child mental health agencies such as NIMHANS or accredited comprehensive child response units.
The school needs to take a proactive stance with the concerned parents and other parents. They may also need to be alert to the impact on other children and get appropriate experts to do de-briefing as necessary.
Furthermore, preparation needs to be made to receive the child back to the school in natural and non-stigmatizing ways so that the child re-integrates comfortably.
Police involvement
In the immediate aftermath of trauma, when there is non-availability of a trained person within the police forces for sensitive interviewing of the child, they need to refer to an expert in agencies such as NIMHANS, where forensic interview protocols are followed in the context of healing interventions.
Police need to be cognizant that interview processes involving children cannot be hastened as it can exacerbate the trauma and be detrimental to the child’s well-being. For instance, taking a child back to the scene of crime and asking him/her to explain/demonstrate what happened, causes the child to relive the trauma and could interfere with recovery; also, such pressure on the child is less likely to elicit accurate information.
They need to understand that there are robust acceptable methods of gathering forensic evidence to meet the immediate legal ends.
Media – good practice
Media should be proactive in responding to crisis in ways that instill hope and confidence in the public versus fueling cynicism as the latter may only serve to increase the child’s trauma, and the family’s fears of social stigma.
The media must protect the identity and privacy of the child. This includes allowing and enabling the family to pursue due medical and legal processes without heightening their trauma by repeated and sometimes intrusive queries.
It would be helpful for the media, at the time of query/ reporting, to assist the family with information about where medical, mental health and legal, paralegal services is available.
Reporting on CSA could emphasize systems and treatments available for assistance, and strongly present the child’s entitlement to healing. This can be done by providing an on-going feedback about recovery and rehabilitation of the child.
Here is an update about the gruesome incident that took place in Vibgyor school Bangalore. A 6 year old child was raped by 2 teachers and the school authorities are not taking responsibility for kids. Here is the updates I got from a parent.
Update on vibgyor incident:Those who
cannot make it today…Here is update
The incident took place on 2nd July and child of 1st grade was sexually assaulted by 2 school teachers.
Two SPA coaches of school are involved in the incident i.e. Gymnastic Teacher and Western Dance Teacher
The incident took place in main block of the school between 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM in some dark room
School is trying to cover up the entire incident and not ready to take any responsibility. School is trying to prove that incident happened outside the school but police confirmed it happened in Main Block
Possibility of more people being involved cannot be ruled out by police as the Aaya (maid) took the timeout and she only took the child to dark room and after that she only took the child to washroom for cleaning on the day of incident
The SPA teachers assaulted child on the pretext of punishing her and threatened her of dire consequences after the incident
Both the teachers are in police custody but not arrested yet8. The class teacher, Primary coordinator, SPA coordinator and other teachers are being questioned by the police. All SPA activities are suspended by the school sine die till the investigation is over.
This is not the 1st incident but many parents highlighted & reported multiple cases of molestation and child abuse within Vibgyor premises in last few years….In-fact last week 1 girl student of 6th class was molested by swimming teacher in school. The gymnastic teacher who is arrested, there were multiple complaints in past against him for taking pics of girl child and molestation. If school would have taken action against Gymnastic teacher on time then this horrific incident could have been avoided.
All parents were aghast and shocked by the attitude of school authorities…The principal was hiding behind and on top of it school authorities named the child in public domain which is a serious crime…Parents were concerned that any tom, dick and harry can be teacher in VIBGYOR HIGH and most of the teachers are working for pocket money…They are not trained teachers & just doing time pass…Send your kids at own risk till end of academic year….It was shocking to know experience of other parents and it is one of most dangerous schools in Bangalore with lot many untold stories of child molestation and abuse.
Please pass on this message to all your friends through all what’s app groups… A protest march is organized against gang rape of 6 year child in Vibgyor High School, Marathalli, Bangalore on 19th July (Saturday) at 10 am. It will start from Vibgyor School, near kundalahalli gate, thubarahalli, Bangalore….this horrific incident is now covered by national media….please circulate on all What’sapp groups…it will be our small contribution to bigger cause and will help in making world a safer place for kids..
Request all of you to spread this message. Let us join in the fight against such incidents. The school authorities and people involved have to be severely punished. It can happen only with our efforts.
I just signed the petition “Karnataka Education Minister Kimmane Ratnakar: Issue directive to all schools in Bangalore to impose security measures for the safety of children” on Change.org.
It’s important. Will you sign it too? Here’s the link:
Person 1 – Excuse me, do we get buses towards airport here? – (Kan) Excuse me, illige airportige hoguva bussugaLu baratta?
person 2 – sorry, I do not know. – (kan) Kshamisi. Nanage gottilla
Person 3 – It comes here. But you should wait on the other side of the road. – (kan) adu illige baruttade. aadare neevu rasteya aa badiyalli kaayabeku.
person 1 – oh, is it? ( kan) Oh, Houdaa?
person 1 – Do you know the bus numbers? – ( kan) nimage bussina number gaLu gotta?
Person 3 – all numbers with 18 go to airport. – (kan) hadinentarinda shuru aaguva ellaa bussugaLoo airportige hogottave.
Well its good to be loyal to your spouse, but is it good if you are loyal to your company? When I say company, it means two things both the organisation where you work, or the company of friends which you keep!!
You are loyal to your organisation but organisation needs someone who is having the expertise in latest technology, Then organisation wouldn’t mind breaking strings with you and tie another knot with another more valid and skilled employee! Isn’t it? Then why should we be loyal to the company?
And now lets talk about the company of friends. Over the years we see that our way of thinking is going tremendous change. A person who considered love marriage to be sin, might now see that its other way round! She might think arranged marriage is sin and love marriage is the most divine thing. But her friend who supported her old idea might not support her new idea.
When your way of thinking changes and the company you keep no longer accept it, then what is the fun in keeping such company? Rather such company becomes pain in the neck. But why am I telling all these?
Because I feel we often get addicted our gadgets in the same way as we get addicted to our company. Not bothering to know there are other better things out there. I have my computer ie desktop which I bought in 2000!, I have laptop which my husband gifted me in 2009! I have a tablet which I bought because of some indiblogger coupon I got . But in-spite of all these both my personal and professional life are lagging behind because of the inefficiency of these gadgets!!
The laptop suddenly started giving problems from past few months. I didn’t want to reformat it because there are few programs installed in it, I dont know if that could be copied to other system, as the program said for one system only when I bought it. It is some education software for my daughter
and it has courses from pre-primary till grade 4 and she is still in grade 2. Losing it now will mean losing two years interactive chapters.
My fun book is of no use to me as it does not have Microsoft office in it. Also the more the memory is used the slower it becomes.
I cannot even use my husband’s office laptop as it has Lotus in it and not Microsoft office!!
Oh god, life has really become hell depending on all these losers!!
This is when I got ASUS, it was like dream come true. I could start working on all the pending work I had. I could start participate in all blog contests J
I could make presentations for my Training sessions.
There was no need to be always plugged in as it gives 11 hours battery life. Hence I could easily keep it in hand and continue my working while sleeping beside my daughter.
So the life wont stop with Asus.. your new partner for life…
With a heavy heart I am saying goodbye to the state in which I am living from five years. Henceforth I will be living in Telangana and not Andhrapradesh.
In a country where great poets like Kuvempu and Rabindranath Tagore talked about being a global citizens rather than limiting ourselves to our caste, creed or Language, the people of Andhrapradesh have decided to divide further thus increasing the pieces of India. I am afraid how many such more surgeries our mother India has to undergo!
In a time when cities like Mumbai and Bangalooru have become cosmopolitan and not only people from allover India but also people from all over the globe are residing in such places, here we are dividing a state which has one major language Telugu to two parts and looking at the identity of a person by his place of origin and not by his qualification or character.
I always wondered when it does not make any difference for a Hyderabadi to find job in Bengalooru and work there, and a bengaloorean to work in Hyderabad how is it going to make any difference by dividing state to two or three parts??
But local people do understand the issue and hope that bifurcation will solve their problems. Now that Chandrababu Naidu will be the chief minister for the residual state of Andhrapradesh, even I am under the feeling that Hyderabad should have been a part of that state. Looking at the irresponsible comments KCR makes I wonder how can he ever do justice to the people.
So now even though we continue to stay in the same house my address will be changed. Now onwards I need to scroll down to select my state of domicile!!
As they say ‘what ever happens, happens for good’ Lets still be optimistic and hope Telangana prospers like never before and all those people who sacrificed their lives voluntarily or by force will rest in peace.
Today I came across a news titled ‘Hyderabad boy including Five other Indian sprinters got a unique opportunity to get trained with ex- Olympic Coach ‘ and I was curious to know the school of Hyderabad boy as we are staying in Hyderabad and my daughter is interested in sports.
When I found the name of the school, I was really surprised as I did not know such a school existed. The boy Harikrishna is from ‘Andhrapradesh Sports School’. The school is founded by Government of Andhrapradesh. I really do not know if such Government sports school exist in all states!
The entry to this school happens at the age of 8-9 years for IV Grade. The students will undergo different physical trainings from basics to advanced as they advance to next classes.
The students and alumni have won various gold and other medals at number of international events.
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