Me, The Change: Mariam Rauf’s Fight
Against Child Sexual Abuse
One Survivor's Amazing Story
Vikram Venkateswaran, The Quint
I was given the name ‘Mariam Rauf’ and after finding hardly any information online, I landed up in a brick-red school building in Kottayam, Kerala to find her. Even before she arrived, the principal, teachers and the students were singing praises of their ‘Mariam Miss.’ And just then a young woman in a yellow kurti walked in with a sweet smile on her face. As she entered the kindergarten class, the kids yelled in excitement.
Twenty-two-year-old Mariam Rauf is a Personal Safety Educator.
Apart from sex education, she also teaches students about body safety.
She became a popular name when she started a petition on Change.org asking for Personal Safety Education (PSE) to be made compulsory in all government schools in Kerala. The petition, addressed to Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (KeSCPCR) and Education Minister C Raveendranath, had over 38,000 signatures (at the time of writing this article).
As a first time voter, Mariam’s only demand is to make personal safety education compulsory in schools. (Photo: The Quint)
Today, she stands as a confident, independent woman lending a helping hand to every person in pain, but her journey was riddled with a lot of trauma. From the age of three until 14, she was abused by three different men. It was at the age of 19, that she remembered her suppressed trauma.
“All of a sudden, I had this very clear memory... whole bunch of memories, actually. That there was a shopkeeper, a family member and there was a doctor. All three have sexually abused me.”
Mariam Rauf, Personal Safety Educator
Mariam then confronted her abusers. She says one of the most important things a person who has been traumatised needs to know is – don’t blame yourself, hold the abuser accountable for his/her actions.
“On one side, your brain is...being acknowledged. Your memory is being acknowledged. This has happened. You’re not imagining anything. You’re not nuts. And the reason why you felt so bad and hurt all these years, it makes sense. Somebody you care for, somebody you trust has done this to you and they’ve admitted it. That’s very important. It’s a huge step in healing,” she says.
“A child has to grapple with things, you know – ‘Was I not a good kid? Why did it happen? How could they do it to me?’ Cause it’s somebody you love and care for.”
Mariam Rauf, Personal Safety Educator
Mariam says it’s important to be aware of one’s own bodies, adding that we shouldn’t be ashamed of any body parts and give private parts the right names. She says parents should believe what their child says because children don’t make things up about sexual abuse.
She recollects an incident of how a woman had once taught her daughter that her vagina was a flower that she shouldn’t allow anyone to pluck it. Once when the child was abused, she ran to her mother saying, ‘Uncle plucked my flower.’ The mother forgot the euphemism she had taught and it took a while before she could comprehend what was happening with her child.
“Most importantly, stranger danger is a myth, alright? Strangers are not the ones who are abusing kids. Mostly they are people you know or the kids know.”
Mariam Rauf, Personal Safety Educator
Good video, in Hindi with English subtitles 4:22
The video above quotes statistics from a survey done in Kerala. It had some flaws, in my estimation, and so came up a little short on their estimate of female children being sexually abused.
It is not surprising that more than half of all boys are sexually molested but it is very unlikely that more boys than girls are. I suspect the real percentage of girls being sexually molested is much closer to 75 or 80%.
So what can you do? You can create a space for your kids to approach you and you can tell your kids about body safety rules and tell them that they can say NO, they can GO, TELL you about it and that you will listen to them.
Mariam Rauf, Personal Safety Educator
As a first time voter, Mariam’s only demand is to make personal safety education compulsory in schools.
“All I am asking is that in the hundreds of hours that a kid is in school in a year, just to take two to three hours. Just a couple of sessions out of the whole number of school days to teach them personal safety and life skills,” she says.
Exactly. And do it very early in their lives. And do it again every few years, at least.
Bless you, Mariam for what you are doing.
South Dakota joining child sexual abuse prevention campaign - need trainers
SOUTH DAKOTA NEWS FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — South Dakota is joining a movement that gives adults and communities the information and skills to prevent child sexual abuse.
South Dakota on Tuesday is becoming the eighth state to join the national Enough Abuse Campaign. The announcement comes as part of Children’s Day at the Capitol.
The campaign offers educational information to youth, parents and other concerned adults to stop people from abusing children and to prevent children from developing abusive behaviors.
South Dakota groups are accepting applications for trainers to go through the campaign’s curricula to teach people in their communities about the issue.
Finland to change law to recognise
sex without consent as rape
'It’s about improving things for victims but also about the message the law sends - consent is not a grey area,' says campaigner
Chris Baynes, Independent
Parliament in Helsinki, Finland, where the government is to tighten sexual offence laws ( Wikipedia / CC 3.0 )
Finland is to tighten its laws to ensure sex without consent or with children is always punishable as rape.
The government announced the proposed changes after 57,000 people signed a petition calling for sexual offence legislation to be revamped.
The country’s Nordic neighbour, Sweden, passed a similar law last year.
Campaigners in Finland welcomed the move and said the #MeToo movement had prompted “a big change in the conversation” about consent.
“The main victory is the tone of the debate around the issue,” said Hanna-Marilla Zidan, who had proposed the law changes through a citizen’s initiative – a European Union mechanism through which people can put forward legislative ideas.
Speaking to Yle, Finland’s national broadcaster, she added: “It’s important because the law sends a message to society about what’s okay and what isn’t. It’s about improving things for victims but also about the message the law sends – consent is not a grey area legally.”
Finland’s justice department has appointed a working group to hand detailed proposals to parliament after the next election in April.
Sex with minors is always rape
The changes will also ensure sex with minors is always classed as rape.
It follows an outcry over a case in which a man who sexually abused a 10-year-old girl could not be charged with rape under Finnish law.
Prosecutors appealed unsuccesfully last year for a higher sentence after the 21-year-old was jailed for three years for aggravated sexual abuse in 2016.
A spate of alleged sexual assaults by migrant men also prompted calls from right-wing MPs to allow authorities to deport foreigners convicted of sex crimes.
But Finland’s justice minister Antti Hakkanen stressed amendments to the law would be made under careful consideration, “not by reading incendiary headlines on social media and making rapid changes”.
In other words - we are still governed by the madness of political correctness!
Christian Ministry Stops More Than 1500 Sex Trafficking Victims at Border of Nepal in 2018
By Aliya Kuykendall, The Stream
A ministry in Nepal intercepted more than 1,500 victims of trafficking during 2018, says Ralph Done, director of missions at Life Outreach International (LOI). These victims, almost all women and girls except for 20 boys, were under the control of traffickers who were on their way to pass through the Nepalese border with India.
RescueLIFE: Fighting Modern Slavery
Done was in Nepal a few months ago, learning about the rescue efforts of LOI’s partner ministry there. LOI raises funds through its TV show, LIFE Today, for ministries around the world. LOI refers to their fundraising effort for ministry partners that fight sex trafficking as RescueLife. RescueLife keeps its ministry partners’ identity confidential to protect them from attack.
Through RescueLIFE, LOI allocates funds to vetted Christian ministry partners in the U.S. and around the world who fight modern slavery. The RescueLIFE partners fight traffickers, educate communities, rescue victims from the hands of traffickers and restore those who have been rescued through the love of God.
‘Never Heard of Again’
Done called this effort to stop traffickers at the border both a prevention and a rescue. When stopped at the border, the traffickers have not yet taken the girls and boys to the place where they would be exploited for financial gain.
“If these girls ever get across the border by the traffickers, they disappear and they’re never heard of again,” Done explains. “They end up all over India. They may end up in all various countries.”
The U.S. Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report for 2018 gives a summary of human trafficking in every nation of the world. The report confirms Done’s report. “Following the 2015 Nepal earthquakes,” it says, “Nepali women who transit through India are increasingly subjected to trafficking in the Middle East and Africa.”
Vulnerable to Trafficking
“Many Nepalis, including children, whose home or livelihood was destroyed by the 2015 earthquakes continue to be vulnerable to trafficking,” the report’s country narrative for Nepal reads.
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake hit Nepal in April 2015. It was the deadliest earthquake in the region in 81 years. Nearly 9,000 people died and nearly 22,000 people were injured. The earthquake toppled buildings and caused an avalanche. The earthquake damaged or destroy more than 600,000 buildings in or near the capital.
“Traffickers know how to entice these people that are very vulnerable,” Done says.
Like vultures to a dying animal.
‘More Precious Than Gold’
Through these interceptions, the RescueLIFE partner has been able to “take down” eight traffickers, Done says. These eight traffickers “are now serving long prison sentences.”
Done adds that this ministry also helps the trafficking victims get back home, if their home environment is safe. If not, the ministry teaches them working skills and helps them get jobs. The ministry has helped around 100 girls go through a healing and training program. In this program they learn not only to work, but to know their identity in God. The ministry teaches those who have been sold that to God, “they’re more precious than gold.”
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