Suspect arrested in high-profile Hanoi
child sex abuse case
By Hoang Viet
The 34-year-old suspect had been summoned by police in January for questioning, but was not arrested.
Police have detained a 34-year-old man in Hanoi on accusations of molesting his 8-year-old neighbor on several occasions, a case that has stirred public anger and caught the attention of top government leaders.
Cao Manh Hung was taken into custody on Thursday more than two months after the girl's mother made an official complaint against him, saying her daughter came home after playing near the house complaining of genital pain on January 8.
The Hanoi Police-run Capital Security newspaper said Hung used to work as a debt collector for a bank in the city.
The girl's mother said Hung had been playing hide-and-seek with her daughter and several other children, and had taken the girl into a hidden corner and molested her. Two of her friends tried to hit Hung when they saw him holding her.
Van said her daughter told her Hung had “checked her body” many times. Medical tests found injuries to the girl’s vagina, and her hymen was torn. Police summoned Hung for questioning on January 11, but did not arrest him.
Van said she had sent written complaints to several law enforcement forces in Hanoi and government agencies.
Last Friday, local district police said they did not have enough evidence to open a criminal investigation, and would need two months to look into the matter.
Hung's detention comes just days after the story spread widely on social media and prompted a deputy premier to order strong and swift action.
Under Vietnam’s penal code, having sex with a child under 13 years of age is ruled as child rape, which can result in the death penalty, while other acts of child sex abuse are punishable by up to 12 years in jail.
In a separate development, an appeals court in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak upheld a six-month jail term handed by a lower court to a 73-year-old shop owner, who was found guilty of molesting a 6-year-old girl in May 2016.
Eleven arrests in three weeks raise alarm over rising
child sexual abuse in Kerala
The number of cases registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act has gone up each year.
Reuters/Amit Dave
Eleven men have been arrested in Kerala in the past three weeks for allegedly raping minor girls, indication of an alarming rise in cases of child sexual abuse.
The ferocity and violence of many of these incidences is horrifying. J H van Linschoten was right about Indian men more than 400 years ago: Linschoten describes the Indians as “the most leacherous and unchaste nation in all the orient!" And obviously, nothing has improved in the last 400 years.
One of the arrested men is a Catholic priest. Father Robin Vadakkamcheril, the vicar of St Sebastian’s Church in Kottiyoor in Kannur district, was arrested on February 27 on the charge of raping a 16-year-old girl and getting her pregnant. The incident came to light after the girl delivered a baby. It was also revealed that the priest had allegedly offered money to the victim’s father to take the fall for his crime. On Friday, a priest and two nuns accused of protecting Vadakkamcheril and trying to cover up the crime surrendered to the police in Kottiyoor. The priest and one of the nuns are members of the Wayanad Child Welfare Committee, media reports said.
Then, on March 7, six men were arrested in Muttil in Wayanad district for allegedly raping seven minor girls – all of them inmates of an orphanage, and between 13 and 14 years of age – for two months.
The same day in Walayar in Palakkad district, three suspects were taken into custody for the alleged rape and murder of two sisters, aged 11 and nine years. The body of the older girl was found hanging in her home on January 11. Less than two months later, on March 4, the younger sister was found dead at home under similar circumstances. The police investigation revealed both had been sexually assaulted before they were killed.
The latest arrest came on Wednesday in Kundara in Kollam district. The suspect was taken into custody after the post-mortem on a 15-year-old girl, who had been found hanging in her home two months ago, revealed sexual assault.
Rising abuse, low conviction rate
These incidents have raised concern about the safety of children in the state with the country’s highest literacy rate (94%, according to Census 2011). More worrying is the official data of the Crime Records Bureau of the Kerala Police. It shows that 2,093 cases were registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act in 2016, a sharp rise from the 1,569 cases in 2015 and 1,002 cases in 2013. This year, 149 cases were registered in January alone.
Sobha Koshy, chairperson of the Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, said almost all sexual abuse cases in India were being reported in Kerala. “It explains the increase in the number of cases [in Kerala] in recent years,” she said. “Rate of reporting is low in other states.”
Abysmal conviction rate
But while incidents of child sexual abuse are going up every year, the conviction rate remains low – a fact state police officials believe is responsible for the spike in such crimes.
Data from special Pocso courts shows that only 261 of the 3,611 cases registered between November 2012 and December 2015 have been settled. And while 53 accused were convicted, 197 were acquitted.
“The acquittal rates were high as witnesses turned hostile during the trial and families of the victims were not ready to cooperate with the investigation,” said a police official on condition of anonymity.
Koshy suggested that setting up child-friendly courts would result in higher conviction rates. “This will instil confidence in the victims and their relatives,” she said. “And automatically, the conviction rates would go up.”
Not only that but it would be considerably less traumatic for the children.
She said that Kerala must protect its children, especially in the face of a rapidly declining child population. “Children constitute only 23% of Kerala’s population now, down from 27% a few years ago,” she said. “The reduction is due to a decline in birth rate. So, we must consider that every child is precious. We should protect them.”
She added that government-funded orgnaisations such as Childline India Foundation, Child Welfare Committees, and the Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child Rights have been reaching out to abused children and working to ensure that adults who prey on minors are punished.
Midlife crisis a factor?
Experts believe that another another contributing factor to rising child sexual abuse cases in Kerala is a psychological crisis, commonly known as a midlife crisis.
Data from 2015 has revealed that 97% of the accused were men – and that 54% of them belonged to the 19-40 age group, and 19% to the 41-60 age group.
“The midlife crisis is experienced by men between 45 years and 55 years,” said Dr Manikandan, associate professor of psychology at the University of Calicut and co-author of the study “Prevalence of Girl Child Abuse in Kerala: An Analysis”.
“They face a lot of issues during this period and may turn to girl children to satisfy their sexual needs,” he explained. “They molest children and threaten the victims to keep the assault a secret.”
No support for survivors
As the number of registered cases rises, many more victims also stay silent. Survivors of child sexual abuse almost always remain elusive as they find it difficult to share their trauma with others, including family and friends.
Media activist and writer Jisha Josh is an exception. A rape survivor, she opened up about the torment she underwent at the age of six. “It was an evening of a summer vacation. I was heading back home alone after the day’s play with my friends. A person came to me and offered to get me gooseberries. He plucked berries and gave it to me. As I started to eat, he fell on me. I didn’t remember when I got up...” she wrote in an article for the news portal ieMalayalam, a few days after the arrest of Father Robin Vadakkamcheril.
She said most sex offenders are heterosexuals, many of them are family members and relatives who take advantage of the “vulnerability of the children”. Therefore, “we should understand that they are not just paedophiles”, she told Scroll.in.
It took Josh over 25 years to recover from the trauma she faced as a child. She thought of committing suicide many times and struggled with depression. Even today, she said, she is yet to completely leave it behind her. “The incident always shakes me,” she said. “I cannot enjoy travelling, I cannot enjoy a movie. It has left a big hole in me and it drains all the love, affection and care I get.”
Josh said society must provide a proper support system for rape victims. “Our society is against the victim,” she said. “I couldn’t see any friendly communication happening with the victims. I think my life would have been better had there been someone to tell me that those are signs of rape trauma syndrome.”
Very few child sex abuse cases reported in India
Shemin Joy, NEW DELHI, DHNS:
Child sex abuse incidents are “overwhelmingly under-reported” and official data points to “extremely poor” law enforcement in such cases, a Parliamentary panel has said.
Only 102 cases of online child abuse were reported in 2015 as against 45 in 2014, according to the latest figures available with the government. The UNICEF, in its report Child Online Protection in India, had expressed concerns over under-reporting and non-availability of data on online abuse of children.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs has now asked the government to ensure that law enforcement agencies are aware of the challenging aspects of cyber crimes against children.
The panel, headed by former home minister P Chidambaram, is of the view that available data indicates extremely poor law enforcement as it only gives information about reported cases and fails to give a reflection of true prevalence of such crimes.
“The committee is anguished to note the severe under-reporting of crimes related to online child sex abuse in India. Firstly, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) does not maintain any separate record of cyber crimes against children.
Secondly, whatever data is collected by NCRB presently, however rudimentary it may be, provides an insight into the state of law enforcement in the country, as it is unbelievable that in most of the states there is no incidence of any online child sex abuse,” the panel said.
It also said that NCRB should collate all the instances of online child sex abuse and other cyber crimes against children under a separate category from this year itself so that the performance of the law enforcement agencies can be analysed.
While acknowledging that stigma and propensity of parents to not involve the police are some of the reasons for under-reporting, it said the process of reporting such crimes needs to be simplified and the identity of the children involved be protected.
It wanted the ministry of home affairs to work towards enhancing capacities of police and cyber forensic agencies. All states should create an online cyber crime reporting platform under the Cyber Crime Prevention against Women and Children scheme, it said.
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