Positive Stories in the War on Child Sex Abuse Episode XIV

India Rules Sex With a Child Bride Is Always Rape in a Massive Win for Girls’ Rights

It’s a landmark change to India’s marital rape laws.

A young actress plays the role of Giorgia, 10, forced to marry Paolo, 47, during a happening organised by Amnesty International to denounce child marriage, on October 27, 2016 in Rome. Embed from Getty Images

India’s top court has ruled that sex with a child is always rape, quashing a clause that allowed men to have sex with underage girls if they were married to them. 

The Supreme Court’s landmark decision on Wednesday closed a legal loophole that has historically allowed perpetrators of rape to escape punishment.

While the age of consent in India is 18, there was a clause in India’s rape laws that lowered the age of consent to 15 if the girl was married. 

But the court has now ruled that the clause is “discriminatory, capricious, and arbitrary”, and “violates the bodily integrity of the girl child”. 

“This is a landmark judgement that corrects a historical wrong against girls,” Vikram Srivastava, the founder of campaign group Independent Thought, told the BBC. “How could marriage be used as a criteria to discriminate against girls?”

Girls under 18 will now be able to report their husbands for rape, as long as they lodge a complaint within a year of it happening. 

“The judgement is a step forward in protecting girls from abuse and exploitation, irrespective of their marital status,” Divya Srinivasan, from women’s rights organisation Equality Now, told Global Citizen. 

“This positive decision by the Supreme Court will hopefully encourage the Indian government to protect all women by removing the marital rape exemption in all cases,” she said. 

Commentators say the ruling will be difficult to enforce in the country, however, due to the high rates of child marriage. 

India is ranked 10th in the world for child marriage, with an estimated 47% of girls married by the time they turn 18, according to the campaigning organisation Girls Not Brides. 

Girls are often seen as an economic burden, particularly in poor, rural areas, and many parents marry off their children in the hope of improving their financial security. 

There is also a shame associated with pre-marital sex that can lead to girls’ parents forcing them to marry their rapists, according to news agency AFP. 

Child marriage is a serious barrier for the girls involved, often leading to them dropping out of school to focus on their domestic responsibilities, or suffering health problems from giving birth at a young age.

India’s rape laws have, prior to this ruling, specifically excluded married couples. Men can currently still have non-consensual sex with their wives without it being classed as rape. 

While Wednesday’s ruling represents progress, there are still steps to be taken in criminalising marital rape.

A challenge to the laws on marital rape is currently going through the Indian courts, reported AFP, but the government has said it opposes criminalising marital rape as it would damage the institution of marriage. 

The government has said that criminalising marital rape could “destabilise” marriages and could be used by wives as “an easy tool for harassing the husbands”.

Workshop over child sexual abuse held at Kashmir school

This is a small thing, for sure, but it's a beginning, and a badly needed one

Rising Kashmir News

Aagosh, a local NGO Sunday conducted a first school-based workshop over Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) here. Titled as ‘Rubaroo’, the event was an interaction with teachers and parents regarding child sexual abuse awareness and prevention. 

Aagosh works against child abuse and is mainly composed of human rights activists, doctors, psychologists and journalists. The workshop was conducted at Blue Bells School, Khanyar and was attended by a large number of teachers, parents and caregivers. 

The speakers discussed the pertinence of speaking about child sexual abuse in Kashmir due to the rising number of cases that are being reported. 

There was a session with a psychologist who discussed with the audience the ways of detection of abuse in children, the ways to approach such kids and ways of dealing and reporting. The abuse in specially-abled children and those in special settings was discussed as well. 

A teacher trainer and a social activist Samreen Hamdani did a small exercise (toolkit) with those present on the occasion. She gave a preliminary training to the caregivers on prevention of abuse and the proper way of educating children about the child abuse. Other speakers talked about medical, medico-legal and reporting aspects of the child abuse. 

This was followed by a free distribution of literature and guidelines, compiled by Aagosh and other world renowned bodies, among the audience. 

Aagosh has been working for raising awareness among masses about the issue of CSA, and becomes a first social group to do such a workshop in the setting of a school. 

And God bless and prosper you in your efforts.

One of the founding members of the platform, Dr. Khawar Khan Achakzai, thanked the school and all the participants and vowed to continue their humble efforts at education and raising awareness. 

"Children can't prevent abuse but adults can, so we continue with however we can to prevent our children against the abuse," he said.

Khanyar, Kashmir

Punjab Chief Minister orders effective measures to control sexual abuse and child pornography

Regional Police Offices and District Police Offices should take strict measures to avoid such incidents: CM

LAHORE, Pakistan (Dunya News) - Chief Minister Punjab (India), Sardar Usman Buzdar has ordered effective measures to control incident of sexual abuse of the children and child pornography.

He said that a comprehensive action plan should be evolved to avert such incidents and the police should take strict action against the people involved in such incidents. The chief minister also issued instructions to the Inspector General Punjab (IGP) Punjab to control such incidents.

The chief minister said RPOs and DPOs should take strict measures to avoid such incidents. He said indiscriminate action should be taken against the people involved in such incidents and action against such incidents should be visible.

He said he is very concerned about such incidents. The children are our future and this is responsibility of the state to provide them protection. The criminals cannot be allowed to ruin the lives of the innocent children.

The accused involved in the incidents of assault of the children and child pornography should be arrested and brought to the justice. The report of the action against such people should be submitted to the CM office.

This is a good start for the Punjab, although the CM's statement was completely devoid of any specifics. The IGP needs to find the right person to head a team to develop the laws and procedures needed to combat child sex abuse. That team needs to be considerable in size as there are so many aspects to child sex abuse that experts are needed in many different fields. I pray you get it right the first time.

New law doubles the time allowed for Texans to

sue for child sex abuse

Governor Abbott recently signed a law that gives victims of child sexual abuse more time to sue their abusers in civil court.

The law doubles the statute of limitations on these types of cases.

Advocates for sexual assault victims are calling this new law a victory for people dealing with the lifelong effects of this type of child abuse.

Kellie Addison from the Purple Door says, “We’re talking about sexual violence. we’re talking about the whole spectrum. and there’s not as much blame or guilt and shame that survivors are feeling around that.”

Formerly, people who were sexually abused before the age of 18 only had 15 years to sue their alleged abusers in civil court to hold them accountable for things like medical fees and counseling services.

“and that therapy and those bills alone can cost up to 115 dollars a session.” Sharra Rodriguez from Crime Victims Assistance says.

Now victims have 30 years to sue their alleged abusers for compensation. Advocates say the new law gives victims double the window of time to begin their healing process.

“It’s very rare when we see people have the courage to come forward and say they were sexually assaulted,” Rodriguez says, and that could be ten, fifteen, thirty years later.”

Directors at the purple door, our local women’s shelter, say there are several reasons victims of childhood sexual abuse often don’t come forward for years.

“but that doesn’t mean that that survivor’s voice or experience is invaluable,” Addison says, “that they shouldn’t be believed and that they shouldn’t have the opportunity to hold that offender accountable.”

This new law was signed by Governor Abbott on June 14 and goes into effect on September 1.