Imagine you following your regular routine as a child going to school, playing with friends, doing homework, and sleeping peacefully in the day as well as at night. One day a person whom you trust, who is in power to keep you safe starts touching your private Body Parts while sleeping, while playing, while being in your own home, isolates you from friends as well as from parents, telling you to keep this a secret and does not stops for years.

In India, children are at risk of getting sexually abused either in their homes, school, or in the community. As per the National Child Traumatic Stress Network: Child sexual abuse is any interaction between a child and an adult or another child in which the child is used for the sexual stimulation of the perpetrator or an observer. The perpetrator can be an adult, adolescent, or older child. 

Sexual abuse can have a long-term impact on the victim like Low self-esteem, Guilt, Shame, Depression, Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Dissociation, Substance abuse, Dislike of intimate relationships, Dislike of sex, or the need for multiple sexual partners. Sexual abuse can happen in 2 ways: contact or non-contact:-

Contact abuse includes touching a child’s genitals, making a child touch someone else’s genitals, playing sexual games, and/or putting objects or body parts inside the vulva or vagina, in the mouth, or in the anus of a child for sexual pleasure.

Non-contact abuse includes showing pornography to a child, exposing a person’s genitals to a child, prostituting/trafficking a child, photographing a child in sexual poses, encouraging a child to watch or hear sexual acts either in person or on a video, and/or watching a child undress or use the bathroom.

Grooming plays a very important role in Child Sexual Abuse.  In grooming the sexual predator builds a friendly relationship with a child as well as with their guardians, so that he/she can gain their trust and build an emotional bond with them. The following are the stages of Grooming:

Stage 1: Targeting the Victim

Stage 2: Gaining Information and Access to the Child

Stage 3: Gaining trust and fulfilling the needs of the child

Stage 4: Gaining the trust of the family

Stage 5: Isolating the Victim

Stage 6: Initiating Secrecy in Relationship

Stage 7: Initiating and Normalising the Sexual Contact

Stage 8: Maintaining control through threats and Blackmailing[1]

According to the Ministry of Women and Child Development study with 12,000+ children from 13 states, 53.22% of children reported having faced sexual abuse, either at home, at school, or in their community. And 50% of abusers are persons known to the child or in a position of trust and responsibility.  

As per the National Crime Record Bureau report 2021 on Child Sexual Abuse, 170 cases per day are recorded, and there is a 12% increase in the number of cases from 2020.     

[1] https://bnblegal.com/article/sexual-grooming-stages-warning-signs-laws-and-ways-to-help-the-victim/#:~:text=India’s%20National%20Commission%20for%20Protection,at%20sexually%20abusing%20a%20child.