Child Abuse

I came across a news article today where the 13 year old daughter of labor workers was raped by her employer in Gujarat. Her parents found out that she was 2 months pregnant and decided to abort the fetus. The doctor refused on the grounds that the girl was a minor. The case was taken to a local court where their plea for abortion was denied. Her mother decided to take this case to the Gujarat High Court where the hospital was instructed to give this girl a thorough medical examination.

This child on the brink of adolescence is forced to carry and look after another child through no choice of hers. Why hasn't legal action been taken against the employer? Is it because he is of a higher status than the victim? Isn't equality and justice for all?

What kind of a man would impregnate a teenage girl? Some cultures say that it is the duty of the girl to be calm, lest she stirs the animalistic desires within the man.
This kind of belief is utter BS.

If the man cannot control his desires and feels the need to harass and molest a 13 year old girl who has just reached maturity, there is no point of blaming the girl. This girl who has just crossed puberty and is still trying to understand her body, now finds herself carrying a child that was created out of hatred and malice. How is she expected to keep a child who's presence would remind her of unpleasant things?

In a study conducted in 2007 it was noted that out of the forty million Indian children, twenty million children faced child abuse or molestation. Most of the perpetrators were know to the children or were family members, cousins or uncles.

This is a despicable act. While most offenders are known to the family and the child, the boy/girl finds it difficult to understand what went wrong and hence hesitate to tell the elders.

Indian society is made up of a bunch of hypocrites. Half the parents don't believe their kids when their child tells them the problem. They prefer to ignore it and act like it never happened. They don't want to take any action against the offenders because they may be close "relatives" or "uncles". Besmirching both their names in public is, according to them, shameful. It doesn't matter that the child has been scared for a life or the possibility of psychological disorders is high. The parents do not want to wash their dirty linen in public even if it means saving the child and believing her.

Yet they act like everything is fine and dandy when they very well know that it isn't. I find it hard to understand how the offenders go to bed every night and wake up every morning, continuing to live their life after they have robbed the child of the one thing that can never be given back - innocence.

Most Indian families are this way. Hypocritical and judgmental. They would do anything to protect the "Indian families are families with values" tag that the world has given us.