Child Sexual Abuse - India

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http://tarshi.net/programs/public_edu/open_letter_sexuality.asp To: the Government of India, All Political Parties and All Citizens WE MUST RECALL that India is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which upholds amongst others, the right of every child to the highest attainable standard of health, the right to education, the right to participation and the right to protection from exploitation and abuse, including sexual exploitation and abuse. HEALTH COMPRISES SEXUAL HEALTH AS WELL. According to the World Health Organization, the overall health of a person is not dependent on the absence of disease or infirmity alone and instead is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being. This includes sexual and reproductive health. WHAT DO STATISTICS SHOW? According to the National Family Health Survey III, 44.5% of women in India still get married by the age of 18 years (28.1% in urban areas and 52.5% in rural areas). Further, 16% of the women i

ANTICLOCK FILMS PRESENT ABHIMANYU DIRECTED BY ONIR We are writing to you with regards to a short film we are making called ABHIMANYU, the story of a child abuse survivor inspired by the true story of Harish Iyer and his struggle to reclaim his own shattered identity after 11 long years of abuse. In India, one out of every five girls and one out of ten boys face some form of physical or psychological abuse. Sadly, most of these incidents are never reported and innocent victims are forced to suffer in silence. The brave few that do come forward are woefully underserved by a society that prefers to look away and a legal system that doesn’t care. We believe that independent cinema exists to give a voice to those working against the tide and outside the system. ABHIMANYU is one of five short films directed by Onir to tackle important issues ignored by mainstream Indian cinema. Our idea is to release each film for educational/awareness/festival purposes and eventually compile all five

HC for more stringent law on child abuse 2 May 2009, 0412 hrs IST, TNN NEW DELHI: Alarmed at the growing instances of child sexual abuse, the Delhi High Court has called for a more stringent law for deterrence effect,saying the definition of rape under section 376 IPC should be made age and gender neutral.Justice S Muralidhar was hearing the appeal of a man sentenced to two years imprisonment for committing "digital rape'' (inserting finger in vagina) of a five-year-old girl. The judge was upset that lack of a suitable law prevented the courts from inflicting the same punishment on him as that reserved for a rapist."The offence of a child sexual abuse is an extremely grave one. Innocent and tender children are abused sexually through a variety of means, one if which is the present case. Such incidents leave a deep scar on the psyche of the child and has the potential of adversely affecting the child's emotional and mental development... the harsh truth is that the

Let's Talk Sexuality Alankaar Sharma and Vidya Reddy The New Indian Express , Sunday - August 26,2007 The last few weeks have witnessed much debate on the issue of sex education for young people, with views ranging from it being considered a 'western' assault on Indian culture to being promoted as the only hope against the escalating HIV/AIDS statistics in the country. What is needed for everyone concerned is to stop viewing the issue as merely a conceptual, abstract and fancy one, but to finally acknowledge the elephant in the living room and start talking about it. This primarily requires relinquishing the attitude that says, "If we don't tell them about it, they won't know" or "Nobody told us and we grew up fine, so let kids find out by themselves". The assumption that young people will not be inquisitive about the sexual aspect of their identity is not only a severely unrealistic one, but also undermines their right to know about themselves.