With summer holidays around the corner, a must read article
http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/camp-safely/article5848346.ece?homepage=true
Camp safely
The Hindu
Keep tabs on who your children are with. File Photo.
Holiday camps are fun exercises where kids learn a lot and make new friends. However, Hema Vijay warns they are also places for potential child sexual abuse and that parents must be cautious
It is that time of the year now, when parents make a
beeline for enrolling their kids at camps or workshops to learn
something new, or just to keep them away from television. Summer camps
are no doubt fun and give our children new perspectives, friendships,
skills and learning experiences. But parents should keep in mind that
while child sexual abuse is perpetrated mostly by someone known to the
child, plenty of child sexual abuse happens in holiday camps too. “Every
summer, we note an increase in the number of cases of child sexual
abuse, with a good many reported from camps,” shares Vidya Reddy, Tulir,
Centre for Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse. “Remember that
child sexual abusers seek situations / jobs that give them access to
children, and camps give them this opportunity.”
Unfortunately,
many parents fail to see the safety implications in these situations.
“I would never send my child out alone at night. But I never suspected
this,” admits S. Seshadri, a parent.
“Parents today
imagine that working to earn for the child supersedes every other
parental responsibility such as spending enough time with the children
or keeping them safe,” rues V. Jayanthini, child psychiatrist and
retired HOD, Child Guidance Clinic, Institute of Child Health and
Hospital for Children. Vidya cautions, “Parents shouldn’t abdicate
parental responsibility and park their kids at camps / places without
ensuring safeguards.”
In the West, summer camps
operate with training and accreditation from statutory bodies. The code
of conduct and safety protocol of the camp is mandatorily made known to
parents. Meanwhile, the U.S.’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention
advocates six components for keeping children safe in camps: Screening
for selecting employees / volunteers; Guidelines on interactions between
individuals; Monitoring behaviour; Ensuring safe physical environments;
Responses to inappropriate behaviour / breaches in policy / allegations
or suspicions of child sexual abuse; and Training about child sexual
abuse. We need to bring in such safeguards in India too.
Listen to the child
“I
don’t want to go to the camp, I don’t like the people there,” wailed
Nirupama. But her parents told Nirupama that ‘she should adjust and be
outgoing’ and dropped her at the camp. As it turned out, Nirupama was
being abused at the camp by her math instructor, who touched and fondled
her under the pretext of staying close to check her work. Likewise,
Rahul, a budding tennis player, was asked to come to the office room to
be given special training and exercises. In the office room, Rahul was
molested, with the coach feeling Rahul up on the pretext of training him
for body-building. Meanwhile, 13-year-old Shwetha was ‘escorted’ by a
‘trusted’ family friend to her grandmother’s house in a neighbouring
city for the summer vacation. Shwetha was sexually molested all through
the journey. When she called up her parents, cried and spoke of a
‘stomach ache’, parents suspected nothing, and simply assuaged her that
she would be with granny soon.
In all these real-life
incidents, the kids could have been spared much of the abuse, if their
parents had recognised the children’s hidden cry for help. Our society
trains kids to obey and adjust to all elders. We don’t understand that
many ‘known and trusted’ friends / relatives / caregivers have turned
out to be child sexual abusers. Parents should be able to recognise
subtle signs of sexual abuse, be it physical, emotional, verbal,
behavioural, or social. “Many kids will not explicitly reveal that they
are being abused. Parents should accept children’s statements on trust,
rather than put their trust in the caregiver / organisation / friend /
relative,” advises child psychiatrist B. Subha.
Know About The Camp
Before
enrolling, parents should visit the place, meet the people who would be
interacting with their child, and observe a few sessions
Ask Questions
Ask
the organisers if they have a code of conduct for their staff for
appropriate behaviour and boundaries of touch and proximity, when
interacting with children. Is this protocol shared with the children?
Whom can the children approach if the code of conduct is violated? Will
there be more than one adult in the room, so that there can be a mutual
check? How do they monitor adult-child interactions? How do they screen
staff? What would their response be to a medical emergency or an
allegation of abuse? How would they handle bullying?
Safety Over Convenience
Do
not drop your child at the camp much ahead of the scheduled time. Don’t
let a child be the last one to be dropped off from the bus or the first
one to be picked up. Such situations create situations of your child
being alone with a potential abuser.
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