One in every 10 children in India has faced sexual abuse at school. While most are not even aware that they have been molested, the older children have gone through torrid times trying to convince authorities about the incident. It is this double torture that ends up stressing them and even resulting in fatalities. Kamalika Das, for example, committed suicide after waging a lone battle against her school. Deebashree Mohanty speaks with victims’ families who tell you that child sexual abuse in school is a sordid reality which is not going away anytime soon
Mrs Snigdha Deb, just in case you ever get to read this, I went to a counselor because I was molested.... There is a little advice from a dead girl. If you want to scold a girl for smoking, you scold her for smoking. Don’t bring up something from her past and mix it up. Ok. That’s all. Goodbye.
Suicide note of Class XI student Kamalika Das who was humiliated by school authorities so much that she committed suicide on March 20, 2015, and addressed this note to her school principal.
It all began four years ago. During the winter of December 2010, Kamalika Das, who was all of 13 then, walked up to her principal’s office in Kendriya Vidyalaya II, Salt lake City, Kolkata, furious and shattered. She had been molested and threatened by a boy in her class. She thought she would stand up for justice but the young teenager was mistaken. She was in for much worse. The principal refused to acknowledge her complaint. Even worse, she accused Kamalika of lying and deliberately misrepresenting the incident to gain attention and for self-promotion!
Kamalika wanted to study human rights and was looking for an internship with a local NGO for underprivileged children. On March 20, 2015, she would have turned 18. But it was not to be.“She was a bright kid with around 50 trophies and honours to her name. But what made Kamalika a complete human being was her inherent goodness. She was more than eager to help the needy. Her parents acknowledged and respected her point of view. Her birthday wish was to treat slum children in Kolkata to ice cream. But that dream was never fulfilled. She killed herself before that. After four long years, she decided she had had enough,” Smita Sharma, a photojournalist and Kamalika’s cousin, says talking about the biggest tragedy in her family.
Sharma is on her way to New York for her latest assignment but something inside her told her not to give up. “Kamalika deserves a closure. She deserved to know that what happened to her was not right. Not fair,” she tells you on phone from Kolkata. The journalist who covers human rights issues around the globe recently started an online petition that talks about the painful death of Kamalika, who ended her life in 2015. Her online petition on www.change.org saw a lot of participation with as many 80,000 people signing it within a fortnight. “I have started this petition to implore HRD Minister Smriti Irani to issue guidelines to all schools, asking them to ensure that if a student speaks out he or she must be given access to professional counselling.
“Furthermore, a code of conduct must be instituted and proper training provided to teachers and principals to ensure empathy. An independent civil society group that has experience in dealing with sexual abuse and assault must develop the training material,” the petition at change.org says.
“It was not the molesting but the incidents that unfurled later that broke my sister completely. As if the trauma of a sexual abuse was not enough, she had to bear all other forms of humiliation. Her friends ostracised her, teachers called her an attention seeker and the boys mocked at her. She was crushed from within. Her parents were supportive and approached the principal to beg her to take some action. But they too were met with the same indifference. ‘Take your daughter to another school’, they told my aunt. Kamalika refused to run away. But we wish she had. At least that would have saved her life,” Sharma says, breaking down in between.
It was rough tide for the family but things had started to fall into place. There would be occasional incidents, but Kamalika was coming to terms with her life when she was dealt another blow.
On January 19, 2015, her class teacher and Hindi teacher took Kamalika to the principal’s office with the complaint that she had not completed her Hindi home work. Very strangely, the principal tore into her. “They said she did not have a good moral character and was a show-off. To further humiliate her, they asked her to return all the awards and certificates that she had won on behalf of the school. The principal suspended her for a week and asked my aunt to come over. The next day, my aunt went to the principal with a heavy heart. Her daughter was going through enough and this was not helping her at all.
“The principal humiliated my aunt in front of Kamalika. She told her she was a terrible mother and that she had not raised her daughter well. She threatened to expel Kamalika from school and stop her from giving her exams. My aunt, in sheer desperation, begged for forgiveness as she wanted to save her daughter’s career. All the while, Kamalika stood watching her mother beg for forgiveness for a crime her daughter was a victim of. That is when my cousin buckled,” Sharma recounts.
Since Kamalika’s suicide, Sharma has generated many signatures through the Indian chapter of change.org and will be seeking an appointment with the HRD Minister in the coming few weeks. “My uncle just sits and finishes his crossword puzzle every day. There is no place he wants to visit. He looks at the pages of a newspaper blankly and goes about his chores. It is a dreadful feeling. Our demand is not big — counseling should be made compulsory in every school and teachers need to be taught about what means abuse. Right from pre-nursery, children should be taught the difference between bad touch and good touch,” she says.
Are we even close to achieving this 100% safe schooling systemIJ “Maybe, three generations down the line we would be somewhere close. That is, if we act today,” Sharma warns.
She is not alone who is fighting a tiresome battle against an apathetic system. Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) is a growing but under-reported horror. It is a huge issue, but we hardly ever discuss CSA. Statistics say, nearly 53 per cent children in India are victims of sexual abuse, but speaking about it is still taboo. Actor Rahul Bose who was a part of a conference on this subject a few years ago said the cases instead of being curbed are on a steep incline.
“It is the worst kind of crime. A child never forgets abuse, so let’s not sweep it under our beds and forget about it. An abuse in any form just keeps coming back to haunt the child at important stages. So, it is an imperative that the child has some closure. For that, it is essential that her crime is taken seriously and the perpetrator is brought to justice,” he says.
Bose wants child molestation cases in schools to be tackled under a strict law. It is important that schools are made completely free of such crimes. “Our children spend most of their time at school. Ensuring a safe habitat should be the foremost concern of the school,” Bose says.
What makes matters worse is that only about 20 NGOs are working on the issue. Documentary filmmaker Sanjeev Motwani, who made the film Ab bas karo bahut ho gaya (2011) on CSA, feels a strict law, combined with proper education, could go a long way in curbing this necessary evil. “ Statistics tell a very sad tale. Every second child in India is a victim of sexual abuse. Perpetrators are mostly known to these children. I took my film to various schools and children’s homes across the country to help youngsters recognise abuse, raise their voice against it and report it to a responsible adult. During these screenings, I came across many children who revealed that they have faced sexual abuse and they were not even aware of it. It’s a complex subject and needs to be dealt with with great sensitivity,” he says.
But the reality is starkly different. Most crimes that happen in school are quietly and intentionally brushed under the carpet until someone wakes up and smells the coffee. Take Savita B Khuranna from Vellore, who decided she had to wage a lone battle to get some sort of a closure for her 12 year-old daughter. And Khuranna being a technology savvy housewife took to the social networking site to vent her frustration.
‘He made my daughter sit on his lap while explaining a laboratory experiment in front of the whole class. The teacher then put his hands under her skirt and in no time, his fingers were all over my daughter’s private parts. She is not the only one who goes through this ordeal. Every week, there is a new girl who has to go through this ritual. Please find him. Please let’s stop this’. This was Khuranna FB post which got as many as 1,200 shares and multiple comments.
She knew something was amiss the moment Pinki (name changed) disembarked from the school bus her head hung low. Her sleeves very dirty and her eyes strained. “She is a chatterbox who normally doesn’t let anyone else have a conversation in peace. But that day Pinki did not utter a word,” her mother Savita recalls. Pinki later recounted her ordeal at school and the parents immediately rushed to the school to lodge a complaint.
“No one, not even the principal was willing to listen. The said teacher was their senior-most and much ‘respected’ staffer,” she tells you over the phone from Pune.After battling with the school for over two months, Savita and her family shifted base to Pune. But even today, Pinki finds it hard to make that walk to her new school. “We were forced to give up. But we cannot rest in peace thinking what our daughter had to go through,” the hapless mother says.
It is the taboo and social fear which adds on to the trauma of going through physical abuse at school. “The institution almost always turns the table on the victim. Imagine what a precedence we are setting! Our girls will never speak the truth in fear of social stigma. Most suicide cases in India happen because of this tension topping the actual abuse,” child psychologist Aruna Saksena, who is also a freelance school counselor, says. Saksena reiterates the need for expert counselors within the premises of the school. “It is like we have a medical room and doctors on call. Schools needs to have counselors on board too,” she says.
The solution lies in education and awareness, believes Bose. He says while many celebrities have spoken about CSA in public, mainstream cinema has shied away from making films about the issue. “I have not come across many films dealing with the problem in a serious manner. Films are a reflection of our society. Shouldn’t we have more directors broaching upon this topicIJ Why are we running away from this realityIJ Bollywood should come up with a sensitive cinema on how to deal with child abuse at school which will benefit both the child as well as the teachers,” he tells you.