Nipped in the Bud

Nipped in the Bud

Krishna Kumar (name changed) is a plus-two student from Thiruvananthapuram. He belongs to a financially stable family and he is their only child. His father provided everything the child required.  It was a happy family.  Krishnakumar was aloof often and was afraid of facing people and also often liked to be alone behind closed door. The parents thought that it was part of the character of the boy which was unlike any youth of his age. He did not have many friends too.

When Krishna was studying in Vth grade; his uncle had tried to sexually abuse the child. This was noticed by his aunty and due care was taken to solve the issue. Little did Krishna’s parents know about the continuance of abuse by Krishna’s uncle.

Previous week Krishna’s mother heard noises from the room of Krishna at 11.00pm and went to his room. After her son opened the door she found Madhu (Krishna’s uncle) hiding in a cupboard. He had climbed over the terrace of the building and Krishna had opened the door for him. The child had been abused by Madhu for the past several years.

By the first few instances of abuse, the abuser had managed to create guilt feelings in the child and had threatened him saying that it was his fault and had total control over the child so that it was impossible to escape from his clutches or to tell anybody. It was surprising that even at 17 years of age Krishna could speak out or defend himself.

It took hours of counseling to make Krishna realize that it was not his fault. Probably it will take years to bring him back to normalcy. After legal proceeding was initiated it was found that Madhu had abused several children of his relatives and even his son.

It is surprising that the parents did not realize the plight of the child even when they had only one child to take care. It is very important to talk with the children, befriend them and get to know the minute changes in their behavior in order to intervene to help the child. Home should be the first school for the child in knowledge on every aspect of life.  It is important to remember that child abuse cast a shadow the length of a life time.

A Holistic Approach

Rescue, Protection and rehabilitation of children at risk and promoting child rights are fundamental to Don Bosco Veedu Society’s work for children.  Involvement for promoting and restoring child rights cannot be devoid of a child’s family. As family is where a child should belong, we often find that in order to provide a conducive atmosphere for holistic growth of children, there is an unavoidable need to create a support system involving the ‘child friendly’ family members as violations faced by children most often are from the family members themselves.

A call came to our child helpline regarding a boy who was not attending school regularly.  Our team visited the home of the child. The family consisted of the mother and her child Kishore (given name). We found that the mother was not sending the child to school. She was not mentally sound and she said that bad weather is causing illness to the child though we noted that there were no weather problems.   She promised to send Kishore to school from the next day.

We made a follow up visit after two weeks and found that she was not sending the child to school. We visited her relatives and local Panchayat authorities. Her brother was ready to take care of the child but due to her mental health problems, she was not ready to listen to her brother.

Enquiring further we found that Smitha (mother of Kishore - given name) was a Civil Engineering diploma holder married to a drunkard. She had lost two children during the delivery. And Kishore is the third child of Smitha. Soon after the birth of Kishore his father dumped the family and went away. By this time Smitha was mentally ill and Kishore became her only support. After an attack of pneumonia, Smitha  would not let the child go out due to fear of illness recurring.

We intervened with the local authorities, police and relations of the family to rescue the child and hospitalize the mother.  After a course of treatment Smitha is under the care of her brother and the child is attending school regularly.

Our experience is that in over 90 percent of the cases there is a need to involve the relatives, neigbourhood and local authorities in order to create a support system to the child so that there is possibility for long standing solutions to issues faced by children. This is the style of intervention that we do even though it is much more tedious.