THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: One could blame it on mobile phones, Internet or the changing lifestyles. But the big truth remains that the majority of children face abuse in their own homes, from their near ones. Testifying it would be the experience of Kerala Mahila Samakhya Society, which joined hands with the State Education Department to offer a help desk programme for girls in schools. In the last one year and more since the help desk was launched, more than 200 cases have stumbled out, but most of them point to the role of rotten and broken families in the sexual and mental harassment of children within its four walls. Sample this; a girl studying in a government school in the city, prompted by the gender classes run by the KMSS and SSA in schools, confided in her teacher that she was being sexually exploited by her stepfather. He has been doing it for the past many years, but it was when she grew older that she realised the true nature of things. The KMSS members intervened, took the girl to their protection and tried to take the girl’s mother into confidence. But the mother would not budge and kept protecting her husband. Later, when the case reached the police station, the family members took the girl home on legal grounds and the KMSS members were helpless. The girl discontinued her studies, but whether or not she is free of abuse is not known. However, in the nearly 30 cases that have been registered so far after the help desk activities began, the KMSS activists could bring the accused people before the law. The incidents in Kasargod, Malappuram, Vellanad and many other places where shop-keepers, headmasters and teachers respectively were found guilty of abuse, faced action. “It is often found that children face abuse from people nearer to them. It requires a lot of intervention and counselling to convince the children to open up. But when abuse happens at home, the child does not receive the support to open up or confide in a second person,” says Seema Bhaskar, project director of KMSS. The KMSS has been actively taking the message of the need for gender awareness to teachers and schools. Though a helpline number was proposed which could serve emergency purpose for students, it is yet to materialise.On the other hand, with the kind of response to the help desk project, a toll-free number would take matters to new heights and maybe the KMSS or SSA would not be able to handle the pressure.
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