Holistic Education

shandana,

thank you for this article. i think all of your points in this effort will hit against the proverbial brick walls, but i suppose i retain some optimism that those walls will be smashed. for a culture that for the most part wishes to pretend not to exist from the neck down (in conversation at least), some of us have had to learn about these things from sources other than family or school, and unfortunately it`s been by being touched, or fondled, or worse.

not too long ago i was working on a story about a six-year old who is nearly sexually molested in the garden of the house she was staying in. and though she had no clue what was happening, she was struck by fear at the thought that it was wrong, and her siblings reappear before the man completely undoes her pants, causing him to flee. rather than coming out and telling her parents about it, she and her siblings decide to remain silent, perhaps because they were the ones who felt responsible, and afraid. and when her father does find out -- from an adult who saw what was happening and didn`t lift a finger -- rather than talking about it, she is beaten for having spoken to the stranger. this story is based on a real life incident. i was that child who had no clue what was happening to her.

many of us are as children told from an early age not to speak to strangers. that strangers could hurt us. but the fear of strangers is not enough for us to understand what is happening when someone touches our private parts. It is good to know that organizations like sahil are doing something positive in this regard, and it is frustrating to know that even in educated families, some from my supposedly enlightened generation, or the one that follows are still unable to cope with talking to their children more extensively about ``stranger danger`` or being touched inappropriately by one of their own.

i really hope more is done with this. it might sound rather cliched to say, but children are our future, and they deserve much better than what statistics show. we all do.

regards, ana

Shandana:

You have touched upon a sensitive subject that is invariably in denial. While I agree with you that educating the child helps, what does one do when the victims are infants or the perpetrator of the crime is the parent? I had once written about a case where a widowed man who abused his daughter was let out on bail with the judge pronouncing that the man, lonely as he was after the death of his wife, was perhaps helpless.

Recently, two incidents were reported about a young student who asked her father (who was accompanying her to school on that day) to see her genitals because apparently the liftman made her do it everyday at that specific time. In the other case, the watchman would make two girls dance for him. These are fairly well-off children and one wonders whether the bait of sweets is all? It is a cycle of threats, shame and fear of revelation.

- - -
ana:

We sometimes cannot do much about what has happened to us, but when we try to do something, say something about what ought not to happen to others....that I think is enlightenment. And you are enlightened, more than many...

Best...
Farzana

In response to Rahul`s question about reading suggestions I have the
following. I have picked them because Pinky Virani`s analyses are replete
with badly rehashed conceptualizations about sexuality that emerge from the
writings of sexologists (primarily American but also European and British)
from the late 19th century through to the mid 20th century. Many (not all)
of the positions espoused by Virani have been discredited and historicized.
Virani ought to have read those analyses before she ventured on her project
precisely because she was one of the first people in South Asia to assay
writing, in an analytic mode, about the very fraught issues on child abuse.
Rather than offering readers terrible and truncated rehashings (without
giving credit where it was due), Virani might then have given those who were
concerned about child abuse reasonable psychological conceptualizations that
helped people think through the issues. For example: Among other things,
her revivification (again truncated) of Freud`s theory of the libido taken
from his engagement with the theories of fluid dynamics turns into:
sublimation will help people control the urge to sex--which if allowed to
run amok leads people to abuse. Awful--and it obscures what she also talks
about and which people who have worked long and hard on abuse believe is the
most important issue-- the imbrication of abuse with power.

These readings given below might also help people to take on some of the
positions held by people like Sudhir Kakar:

One recent title that takes on sexology: Siobhan B. Somerville ``Queering
the Color Line`` (Durham: Duke University Press, 2000)
Earlier titles and still trenchant and to the point are: Janice M. Irvine,
``Disorders of Desire: Sex and Gender in Modern American Sexology``
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990)
Paul Robinson, ``The Modernization of Sex: Havelock Ellis, Alfred Kinsey,
William Masters and Virginia Johnson`` (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1989).

One recent book that thinks through capitalism; the emergence of childhood
as a conceptual category; sexuality and searches for causation (this is
simplified shorthand) is:
Roger Lancaster, ``The Trouble with Nature: Sex in Science and Popular
Culture`` (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). Good book for
folks who want to think political economy and sexuality in the West, but
also generally useful. Has a great bibliography.

For the production of childhood, Philippe Aries, ``Centuries of Childhood`` is
still worth reading, though researchers have begun taking him up on his
positions.
I am including the works on childhood to address Virani`s discussions about
children and the place she feels they have not been given--her positions and
opinions cannot even begin to speak to the historical emergence of childhood
as a site of obsessive interest.

For South Asia, Meena Alexander`s extraordinarily brave rewriting of her
memoir, her life and the abuse in it, in ``Fault Lines: A memoir`` (New York:
The Feminist Press, 2004), offers another take on memory and abuse. She
rewrote the memoir, first published in 1993, after she began seeing her acts
of forgetting -- see section 16, Writing in fragments.

Grace Poore`s film, ``Children We Sacrifice,`` offers stories, reminiscences
and analyses by survivors of childhood abuse who are from or live in South
Asia, broadly conceived.

Finally Ginu Kamani`s ``Junglee Girl`` turns the sexuality of children and
power and class on their heads. The stories focus on Mumbai. They can be
very disturbing and should not be taken as paradigmatic.

Virani`s bibliography at the end of the book is fairly substantive -- I know
some of those books but have not read them all. There are so many. I have
asked psychologists who work with children who have been abused for their
recommendations. When and if those come in, I will forward them to the list
serve.

This is a post from another list .I know I am violating net ethics by posting it here, but for once I will make an exception and I know the person wont mind.

shandy:

Not only do we neglect the mind, we also pretend not to exist from the neck down. The human body, in all its indecipherable complexity, with all its myriad needs, remains a mystery to us for most of our lives. We don’t talk about it when we need to, and hence obsess about it when we shouldn’t.

very well said...also very precise!

lve

t

Shandana,
thanks for your well described thoughts and ideas on the subject. This is a very sensitive matter and im glad more awareness is being created about it then yesteryears. But for further improvement i would recommend you post and send this article to already working NGO`s and origanziations within Pakistan. It is good to create awarenes about it but it is vital for the steps to be taken to actually rid society of these evils. Once again thanks for your thoughts. it was a well written article.

Good article as always, Shandy. I was surprised to see so little discussion on it. There is such little actual work done on this issue in the subcontinent so I was quite excited to read Bitter Chocolate by Pinky Virani. So disappointing. Apart from being quite badly written, she came across as irrational and contradictory.

Unless these acts are recognized as prosecutable crimes and as long as there is no system of education in place for kids nothing will really change. Of course, talking about it is the first step. So...good going Shandana.

The below quotation from here
Typically, what are the repercussions intimate confessions like - ``My uncle raped me repeatedly between the ages of six and 16`` or ``My brother used to kiss and fondle me`` or ``I didn`t have the power to say yes or no``? A family rent apart, its trust betrayed from within. Or a teenager who walks through public spaces hugging her bag to her breasts. Or a mistrust of physical intimacy with a loved fiancé.
Is this because in India, we have a startling absence of support systems such as counsellors, legal activists, sex education or public campaigns for awareness? Or is it because women here lead a gender-circumscribed, marriage-centric existence? Or because prevailing norms of morality treat sex as a four-letter word, resulting in doublespeak and double standards? Or because opportunists within the family exploit the ignorance and trust of children?
Privately, Indian society acknowledges CSA but publicly it denies the fact of it. Indian doctors often `treat` CSA victims without realizing they have been abused, perhaps because medical training overlooks it. As for the Indian Penal Code, it recognizes only outraging the modesty of a woman, sodomy and rape as sexual offences, with the latter covering any sexual intercourse with a girl under 16.
Whether we acknowledge it or not, one out of ten Indian children is being sexually abused at any given point of time. Every 155th minute, a child below 16 years is raped. Every 13th hour, a child below 10 years is raped. That`s according to a 1998 working group on the Convention on the Right of the Child.

Legal position from here

``The laws dealing with sexual offences do not specifically address child sexual abuse. It is disconcerting but true, the India Penal Code 1860 does not recognise Child abuse. Only rape and sodomy can lead to criminal conviction. Anything less than rape, as defined by the law, amounts to `outraging the modesty`. These laws are problematic when applied to adult women, but they are even more difficult when applied to children. While sec. 376 IPC seeks to provide women redress against rape, it is rarely interpreted to cover the broad range of sexual abuses [particularly of children] that actually takes place. The word `rape` is too specific, this does not include abuse on `boys`; moreover, `intercourse` is often interpreted to mean with an `adult`.
Most of these forms of abuse are sought to be covered under sec. 354 of the Indian Penal Code as a violation of a woman`s modesty. Offences under Sec. 354 of the IPC is a cognisable offence but is also bailable, which allows foreigners to simply leave the country before prosecutions begin. While Andhra Pradesh, by a state amendment, has made the offence cognisable, non-bailable and to be tried by a court of session [where the minimum punishment is imprisonment for 7 years, and a fine], other states have not followed. What is also lacking is a central law on the subject. The Juvenile Justice Act was amended and rewritten in 2000, but it makes no attempt to identify sexual abuse on children. Sec. 23 of the Act deals with assault, exposes, willful neglect, mental and physical suffering, for which imprisonment for a term of just 6 months is prescribed. Sec. 5 of the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act 1956 prescribes punishment of not less than 7 years for inducing a child into prostitution, but does not directly address child abuse. ``

http://incestabuse.about.com/od/childabuse/ is a great site with support and education material.
As you and others have pointed out, the tendency of people to let sleeping dogs lie is the biggest obstacle in getting anything productive done. The taboo on sex creates all the problems. The part of ones mind which tries to shut off experiences of sexual abuse, may manifest in strange ways. People will probably try to desist from knee jerk reactions when they realize that their own children, brothers , sisters are susceptible to abuse anytime anywhere.
Finally, thanks Shandana for a well written article.

Re: #8 i m not sure if the pakistan penal code differes from the indian penal code in this regard as it contains the word ``unnatural lust`` instead of ``sodomy`` which s wider in scope.