Kerala is a shocker but incest & sex with minors is nation's worst kept secret
Incest has been a done to death story in the media which sociologists say has no cure. But Kerala recently told you how it is no longer an in-the-family-under-the-blanket-ageold-horror — how it has become an even more heinous offence.
Though one fails to understand what really can be more heinous than your own father, brother, cousin or uncle raping you when you are at your most tender age and in need of a cushion of love and protection, something that the Constitution tags as child right, the sex scam in Kerala shows how much worse a familial crime like incest can get. Not only is there more than one story emerging about a father raping his own daughter but this has often become just a pre-meditated ploy to ultimately initiate her into the sex trade. This also brings to the fore the alarming fact that despite sex with minors carrying a stiff penalty under the Indian Penal Code it is one of the worst kept secrets of India’s sexual deviancy, or should we call it preference.
While Kerala is in the news for what my colleague (read Foray cover) calls an unholy inclination of a large number of men from his State wanting — and getting to have — sex with minor girls, what is even more worrying is that this crime is being perpetrated by personalities of power, clout, stature and a good social standing, not to mention the fact that in most cases there is collusion of the law enforcers too. From politicians to film world men to cops to even so-called social activists, there is more than one rotten apple everywhere.
Not that Kerala is alone in this. Exploitation of minor girls is an Indiawide phenomenon which often gets limited in media reports to just the red light areas. Not really, it is, if one very senior clinical psychologist studying incest and cases of sexually exploited minors is to be believed, more rampant than rape, murder and even theft. He says more than 50 per cent cases of incest and 40-50 per cent cases of minor rape never come to light due to India’s “pride in the family” syndrome. But whatever does come to light is more than shocking as it cripples the minor for all times to come — and despite all the counselling she gets.
Way back in 1999 (the figures have since then grown like inflation) the NGO RAHI claimed in a survey that 78 per cent of girls have at some point in time been sexually abused by their family members. And this, apparently, is not a lower middle class happening. Incest, and rape of minors, is even more rampant in upper class homes though very rarely reported.
And, not that life improves for the very few who report the crime. As a police official revealed once, most of the girls sent to these so-called homes are more often than not exploited. Those who are sent back home are in no better condition. Acceptability in the family is zero and there is no question of anyone taking their hand in marriage. It is a life doomed from all ends — stigmatised by society, shed by family and totally shorn of confidence, such victims become a cesspool of complexities often ending in deviancy and even suicide.
At a tender age up to 17 (that’s the last year of being a minor though one fails to understand how one is an adult at 18 which too is equally tender an age), such happenings, and as the Paravur case in Kerala shows us all, are shocking as much in their frequency as they are in intent. Unfortunately though, beyond coffee table discussions and even serious NGO interventions, once in a while, there is nothing more we as a society are able to do about such incidents.
At least when a scam gets exposed, the least the rule of law as also the law enforcers can do is to see to it that the offenders do not go scot-free or escape with a light sentence. In Kerala, one of the many known offenders, has served a small sentence and been suspended from his political party for raping a minor, only to return as Minister! And in UP, though is not exactly a sex scam, Mayawati has been arguing that she is being targeted over sexual atrocities on women of her State, merely because some of her party men’s names have cropped up on the involvement register. But isn’t that what should never happen? Shouldn’t one make an example out of punishing such men in power so strictly that even the common offender thinks twice before deviating? Should laws not be stricter than what we have now? And shouldn’t Mayawati, or for that matter the Kerala Governments past and present, be contrite that someone from their circles of power has actually abused the party’s name and the power rested in him?
Until this, and the general cleaning of mindsets at a more mass level happens (both look impossible as of now), Kerala-like shockers will continue to be reported, discussed and forgotten.
Source: Sunday Pioneer, July 3, 2011
Though one fails to understand what really can be more heinous than your own father, brother, cousin or uncle raping you when you are at your most tender age and in need of a cushion of love and protection, something that the Constitution tags as child right, the sex scam in Kerala shows how much worse a familial crime like incest can get. Not only is there more than one story emerging about a father raping his own daughter but this has often become just a pre-meditated ploy to ultimately initiate her into the sex trade. This also brings to the fore the alarming fact that despite sex with minors carrying a stiff penalty under the Indian Penal Code it is one of the worst kept secrets of India’s sexual deviancy, or should we call it preference.
While Kerala is in the news for what my colleague (read Foray cover) calls an unholy inclination of a large number of men from his State wanting — and getting to have — sex with minor girls, what is even more worrying is that this crime is being perpetrated by personalities of power, clout, stature and a good social standing, not to mention the fact that in most cases there is collusion of the law enforcers too. From politicians to film world men to cops to even so-called social activists, there is more than one rotten apple everywhere.
Not that Kerala is alone in this. Exploitation of minor girls is an Indiawide phenomenon which often gets limited in media reports to just the red light areas. Not really, it is, if one very senior clinical psychologist studying incest and cases of sexually exploited minors is to be believed, more rampant than rape, murder and even theft. He says more than 50 per cent cases of incest and 40-50 per cent cases of minor rape never come to light due to India’s “pride in the family” syndrome. But whatever does come to light is more than shocking as it cripples the minor for all times to come — and despite all the counselling she gets.
Way back in 1999 (the figures have since then grown like inflation) the NGO RAHI claimed in a survey that 78 per cent of girls have at some point in time been sexually abused by their family members. And this, apparently, is not a lower middle class happening. Incest, and rape of minors, is even more rampant in upper class homes though very rarely reported.
And, not that life improves for the very few who report the crime. As a police official revealed once, most of the girls sent to these so-called homes are more often than not exploited. Those who are sent back home are in no better condition. Acceptability in the family is zero and there is no question of anyone taking their hand in marriage. It is a life doomed from all ends — stigmatised by society, shed by family and totally shorn of confidence, such victims become a cesspool of complexities often ending in deviancy and even suicide.
At a tender age up to 17 (that’s the last year of being a minor though one fails to understand how one is an adult at 18 which too is equally tender an age), such happenings, and as the Paravur case in Kerala shows us all, are shocking as much in their frequency as they are in intent. Unfortunately though, beyond coffee table discussions and even serious NGO interventions, once in a while, there is nothing more we as a society are able to do about such incidents.
At least when a scam gets exposed, the least the rule of law as also the law enforcers can do is to see to it that the offenders do not go scot-free or escape with a light sentence. In Kerala, one of the many known offenders, has served a small sentence and been suspended from his political party for raping a minor, only to return as Minister! And in UP, though is not exactly a sex scam, Mayawati has been arguing that she is being targeted over sexual atrocities on women of her State, merely because some of her party men’s names have cropped up on the involvement register. But isn’t that what should never happen? Shouldn’t one make an example out of punishing such men in power so strictly that even the common offender thinks twice before deviating? Should laws not be stricter than what we have now? And shouldn’t Mayawati, or for that matter the Kerala Governments past and present, be contrite that someone from their circles of power has actually abused the party’s name and the power rested in him?
Until this, and the general cleaning of mindsets at a more mass level happens (both look impossible as of now), Kerala-like shockers will continue to be reported, discussed and forgotten.
Source: Sunday Pioneer, July 3, 2011
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