Child Abuse
I recently happened to see Jaago, a sorry attempt to highlight the increasing menace of child abuse. I wasn’t too keen on watching the movie as I frankly do not consider a movie based on rape as entertainment and would consider all such movies as social betterment documentaries instead. Although the movie did not reflect the ground realities and instead choose to stereotypically showcase the villains as victims of substance abuse and exploiters of higher powers. It also proves that handling a delicate topic either can make a great movie or just end up making a mockery of the victims’ sentiments.
Child abuse, previously a closeted crime is making headlines everywhere as people are coming forward and talking about the horrors they faced. If I recall correctly, few bloggers had cited personal incidents some time back to shatter the myth that such a societal anomaly is restricted to the lower classes. I cannot begin to imagine the horrors of an innocent child who undergoes an already torturous experience of rape. The emotional scars can be permanent and can damage the psyche of an individual permanently, filling them either with hate or fear. A person seriously has to be mentally ill to an unimaginable extent to even contemplate abusing an innocent child and no punishment can be too harsh for such a crime. Personally, I would recommend castration and death by hanging after couple of years in jail, to let the humiliation sink in. But that is just an extremist side of the usually moderate me.
Substance abuse can be potential excuse for child abuse perpetrators but stories of child prostitution in Far East countries like Thailand, Cambodia and Laos are no longer tall tales. A recent arrest of an American in Phnom Penh, Cambodia opened the Pandora’s Box on the heavily advertised child prostitution racket. A walk down the infamous by lanes of deprived cities in these countries will easily get you many offers of girls as young as 8 years old. The very thought that someone would actually travel miles to indulge in such depraved acts is simply disgusting. The governments have finally woken up to this societal malice that corrodes innocence in its purest form. Huge hoardings that scream out harsh penalties would deter the occasional experimenter but repeat offenders deserve no mercy at all.
But apart from the publicized rackets in red-light districts, the primary danger lurks much closer to home. It is often observed that the child molester usually is known to the victim and is within the trusted circle of friends and family. Abuse can be inflicted, irrespective of the gender and require close monitoring of your children and building trust relationships between the parent and the child. I can just hope that no such incident occurs with any of my loved ones. It certainly, is a bad world out there.
