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Male child sexual abuse: Why is society silent on this issue?
Abha Gupta. Dated: 7/20/2018 12:14:49 PM
* Need to protect our sons and daughters equally
* Patriarchy not pro tecting our boys
* 24 year old man re quested President for mercy killing for being sexually abused
* POCSO Act has no clear parameters for male victims
ER ABHA GUPTA
Jammu, July 19
‘Boys don’t cry’, the patriarchal nature of Indian society has led to very different expectations from boys and girls.
Boys are expected to be “men” hence not cry or complain when abused. Many cases of female child sexual abuse are accidentally discovered due to pregnancy and familial abuse is stopped by marriage, but disclosure rate among boys seems to be lower and accidental disclosure becomes more of a rarity leading to years of abuse. Unlike females who often get abused in a heterosexual context, males tend to be abused by men leading to confusion in the sexual orientation of the victims, many of them doubting if they are homosexuals.On July 10 2018, the country witnessed something that had never before happened in its history of 71 years—a letter to the President of India requesting permission to be euthanized (which means mercy killing). The letter was from a 24-year-old young man from Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh. Vishnu Teja had to take such a drastic step after suffering from two decades of debilitating trauma as a child sexual abuse survivor. “Maybe this move would finally elicit some serious changes, in terms of discussions awareness in the society and subsequently, laws and bodies specifically focused on protecting male child sexual survivors would come into place,” he says.
In a study to understand the magnitude of child abuse in India, about 53.22 per cent children faced one or more forms of sexual abuse. Contrary to the idea that girl children are most vulnerable, it was found that boys were more subjected to varying degrees of sexual abuse – at a staggering 52.94 per cent.
Even POCSO Act (2012), for the protection of child sexual abuse victims, has failed with its non-gender-neutral stance on sexual abuse on children, with no clear parameters on the medical examination, punishment to the perpetrators or even compensational aspects for male victims. When the laws in place do not consider or even acknowledge the vulnerability of male child and adults, how can we expect the society to change?
No state or district in the country has a proper cell that helps the male victims to cope with their mental trauma and offers guided counselling. In a society that derides men for even slight deviations from the ideal mould of masculinity, where is the place for sexual abuse victims to raise their voice or find justice?
To make this world safer for children, we need to protect our sons and daughters equally. Patriarchy is not protecting our boys more than our girls in childhood. The very low rates of reporting and help seeking among victims of sexually abused boys in India could be due to the hegemony of patriarchy. This social construct is usually being applied to understand the subordination of girls and women, the fact that it is oppressing all children who are perfect victims irrespective of their gender is being ignored in male children who are expected to be superior due to their biology and also because of this myth of superiority, there are unethical expectations for them to overcome the harmful effects of sexual abuse of childhood without treatment.