Outreach program in schools empowers children to open up about sexual abuse

Women officers of the Coimbatore Rural District Police began a massive outreach program on sexual abuse in schools to enable several girl students to come out and speak about violence against them. This has resulted in registration of several cases, including seven under the stringent Prevention Protection of Children Against Sexual Offences Bill (POCSO).

Project Pallikoodam (Project School), the outreach program for both girls and boys, launched by District Superintendent of Police V Badrinarayanan, had so far reached 1 lakh students in 650 government and private schools since it was launched on June 30, 2022.

As many as 15 students between the age of 9 and 13, after one such outreach programs held at a school in Pollachi, complained to their head mistress that a 62-year-old man, who owned a shop near the institution, sexually abused them. Annamalai, the man, was then arrested for molesting them, while they went there to buy eatables.

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Over a dozen cases under the NDPS (Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances) and other acts were also registered following complaints from students after the completion of an outreach program.

The first POCSO case, after the launch of the outreach program, was registered after a Class 11 student accused her stepfather of misbehaving with her and molesting her for over six months. Of the seven POCSO cases, all perpetrators were either relatives or people known to the survivors.

“School children from KG to Plus-Two are the target audience of this outreach program. We are reaching out to every child as POCSO is a gender-neutral act. Several children are now opening up about sexual abuses against them after our outreach program. We are acting swiftly against the complaints,” Badrinarayanan told DH.

Awareness of basics such as good and bad touch, and various types of cybercrimes are created among children who are categorised into three sections—children below 10 years, girls above 10 years and boys above 10 years.

Another police officer said one of the crucial elements of tackling sexual abuse was the need to create awareness as to what constitutes child sexual abuse and empowering the child to report about any such abuse.

The awareness campaigns were conducted by women help desk officers and Child Welfare Officers who underwent a special training session in Coimbatore on the ways and means to talk to children.

“We have so far registered seven POCSO cases since the launch of the outreach and all seven accused have been secured and remanded. The swift action, we believe, will also encourage several students to open up about any sexual abuse they had faced,” Badrinarayanan said.

The awareness program was designed in such a way that the women officers talk to each and every student in every school they visit. “Of the over 3 lakh students in about 1,000 schools across Coimbatore rural district, we have so far reached out to 1 lakh children in 650 schools so far. The remaining students will also be met by our officers,” the SP said.

In the past two-and-a-half months, over 60 instances of students coming out against their family members, people stalking them, teasing them, sale of tobacco and drugs near their schools, and cyber crimes were reported.