Children cry and demand everything. They shout for a chocolate, for something they need but when they are abused, or are under pressure, they are the most worried and silent ones around. They are not mentally so matured to express their feelings, frustration, fear, joy or anything as such, with anyone. This all remains the same unless they are mature enough, or are trained to do freely express their feelings when needed. The main focus on this is because children, the innocent kids, irrespective of how old or young they are, are being the victims of child sexual abuse all around the world. These children usually don’t express all this in front of their parents, and live their life of pain silently, trying to carry on with what’s happening with them. They are unaware whether its good/bad, whether it has some ill effects, whether the society is against it, whether its a common practice all around. It is us who should teach them what’s right and what’s wrong.
If that’s the condition with children, parents too are mostly unaware of all this. Most of the times girl child parents are too cautious and parents of boys think they are safe. But they never realize that child sexual abuse is shared almost equally by both boys and girls.
DDGang members are joining hands with ARPAN, an NGO from Mumbai which creates awareness against child sexual abuse, amongst parents so that they can try to prevent any act going on, and go against it. The initiative from the gang is taken by Harish Iyer (@hiyer ) and we all gang members are supporting it.
Harish has been one of the survivors of Child Sexual Abuse and says -
“All my childhood I lived a dual life—the life when I was being abused, and the life when I wasn’t. It dictated my very being. It was years of continuous abuse, years of pain, years of breach with not a single soul to reach out to. I bled from my anus often, and once did gather the courage to tell mom. And she thought it was because of the summer heat. I don’t blame her now. She was completely ignorant about the fact that male children are susceptible to sexual abuse and need to be protected.”
We always would salute Harish for the courage he gathered to share this and join forces against any sexual abuse activities going around. Harish is running for ARPAN in the Mumbai Marathon on 17th January, 2010 to support Arpan’s work on preventing child sexual abuse and healing it’s ill effects.
And the group is collecting funds to teach children and parents the skills to protect against the sexual abuse, and help the victims recover mentally.
You can help DDGang by spreading the news about it, or donate funds to ARPAN.
You can donate by going here = DONATE
Or you can pay via cheque, please send cheque in the name of ‘United Way of Mumbai’ to
ARPAN
Unit 24, 2nd flr, 105, Apollo Street, Mumbai Samachar Marg, Mumbai – 23.
Resources -
Chetan Bhawani, From Desi Dilwale
