What this Indian film director wrote to Maneka Gandhi on child sexual abuse?

End the Isolation

This is one of the strangest petitions to have ever come up on change.org platform started by a couple from Mumbai, decades after they realized they needed to come forward from their isolation as victims of child sexual abuse.

The change.org petition calls upon Maneka Gandhi, Minister for Women & Child Development, to order an in-depth study on male child sexual abuse in India and take steps to bring such criminals to justice.

Insia Dariwala. Image courtesy her Linkedin profile

Their chilling painful journey as child sexual survivors would shake anyone's conscience to think how some negative childhood incidents are difficult to erase from our memories.

"I was 10 when I was sexually abused. Men who I had dearly trusted had violated me. The violation became a part of my life. It continued," writes Insia Dariwala, writer-director, child activist and founder of The Hands of Hope Foundation.

With her traumatic past, the petitioner continued to live a confused life but she claimed how it became too difficult to bear the burden of her memories.

"I realised, what happened to me, was called ‘Child Sexual Abuse. The knowing should have freed me. Instead, it sent me deeper into isolation. I carried my world in my head, and for some time it did work in protecting me, but in the process also alienated people around me," he recalled.

In the course of her life, the petitioner came across several child sexual abuse survivors including her own husband!

“I was sexually abused at the age of 5, by a trusted caretaker. The abuse went on for a month. Most times it lasted for a few minutes. The memories though, live in me forever,” her husband recollects in the petition.

While it is to be seen what steps the Women & Child development ministry takes to end child sexual violence against children, it is a fact that a male child is equally vulnerable to  abuse as a girl from predators - both gays and heterosexuals.

Even if it is an insignificant step, you can still sign in support of Insia Dariwala as her petition is  5,000 short of her target 1 lakh signatures.

Please share this link.

https://www.change.org/p/maneka-gandhi-minister-for-women-and-child-development-order-an-in-depth-study-on-male-child-sexual-abuse-in-india-endtheisolation