Making support systems responsive is crucial

Sexual abuse is traumatic and its impact is lifelong. With the perpetrator often known to the victim, cases of sexual abuse remain wrapped in an insidious silence and for the same reason, are difficult to tackle. When abuse is severe the mind is humiliated fearful and lonely. “I feel like committing suicide...I keep weeping inside” a 16-year-old summarised her feelings.

Often, the family restricts the movement of the victim due to threat from the abuser and his family members, fear of further abuse or humiliation by society. The child tends to feel the loss of freedom and punished for the assault. In addition, the glacial pace of the justice delivery system and lack of effective support services further aggravate the trauma faced by the child. The victim remains victimised making it difficult to return to normal life.

Let us understand which are those essential services that a child needs to overcome the trauma other than of course the conviction of the accused. The trauma faced by a child has two main aspects, physical injury and psychological trauma. While the law mandates that medical treatment of the victim should be free, but costly procedures and proper facilities are not available with government hospitals. There is an urgent need to improve medical services for victims of sexual abuse and this can be guaranteed by setting up a dedicated unit in every district hospitals and community health centres.

The other aspect of psychological impact is much severe and requires special skills and techniques. The immediate impact of abuse on the child may include extreme emotional disturbance such as anxiety, nervousness, depression, anger, and low self-esteem whereas long-term effects can include negative perception of the self, confusion of sexual identity and preferences, self-destructive behaviour, inability to form productive relationships, etc. Sometimes the wrath of social discrimination, exclusion and stigma break their self-confidence, self-respect and self-esteem. This also makes it difficult for them to regain trust in people. Along with the child, the family too needs help and counselling. Although, these children initially go through trauma but later emerge out of it with the support of their family and friends.

However, where families are not supportive or are unable to deal with trauma and lack access to support services, children continue to suffer and are denied opportunities to heal and recover from the trauma. In view of these needs, the role of mental health professionals is of critical importance. It is not only essential to provide services of such professionals to every child but it’s cost must also be borne by the government.

Another essential service is legal help (lawyer). In every case of child sexual abuse, Section 32(1) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act mandates that the State Government appoints a Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) for every Special Court. Although the wording of the section in the law implies that these are to be exclusive SPPs to handle POCSO cases. However, in practice, they handle other cases as well and due to heavy workload, the POCSO cases are delayed. In 2019, 1.33 lakh cases were pending in courts with a pendency percentage of 88.8%. In 389 districts across the country the number of pending cases under POCSO Act exceeds 100. This is a matter of grave concern and there is a need for dedicated SPPs to deal with POCSO cases.

The other important person in POCSO cases is the support person. A support person is assigned by the Child Welfare Committee to render assistance to the child throughout the process of investigation and trial. This person is a link between the child and the justice delivery system and also prepares the child for court proceedings and ensures child’s interest and views are heard and taken into account at every step of the process. Unfortunately, the States have not prioritised their appointments. A Study conducted by National Law School in five states (Delhi, Assam, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka) revealed that in a majority of districts in these states support persons are limited, wherever they exist there is significant overlap and confusion about their nature of work. No data is available at the national level to suggest in how many of the 69,000 POCSO cases registered in 2019, support persons were provided. No urgency is seen by the government in addressing this important aspect.

A victim of sexual abuse is not a victim of one abuse but multiple abuses - physical abuse, emotional abuse, mental abuse, stigma, neglect and overall deprivation of the right to live with dignity. While a time-bound legal process and child-centric jurisprudence is non-negotiable, the role of experts in helping him walk this arduous journey is equally essential. The Supreme Court has recognised the urgency and given orders to set up Fast Track Courts and exclusive POCSO Courts, it is now time for the State Governments to match the efforts by providing support services.

(The writer is Director of Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation)