Childhood Betrayed: Child Abuse and Neglect in India

By Loveleen Kacker

No social problem is as universal as the oppression of the child. No slave was ever so much the property of his master as the child is of his parent. Never were the rights of man ever so disregarded as in the case of the child. - Maria MontessoriIn India, where even stones and trees are worshipped, children are routinely beaten, neglected and abused. The daily news is rife with stories of abuse and neglect, often perpetrated in the name of discipline or protection. The Nithari case, female foeticide, instances of child marriage and the sexual abuse of minors - the statistics are frightening. Lakhs of children are robbed of childhood, and India is doing little to remedy that. While the government now acknowledges education and nutrition as the essential entitlements of children, there has been little legislation or initiative to safeguard their most fundamental rights. Child protection is still nowhere on the nation's radar.Loveleen Kacker distilled several years of research to write this cogent and powerful volume on why child abuse and neglect happens and how it affects children in India. She examines physical, emotional and sexual abuse, as well as neglect and maltreatment, especially of the girl child. Bringing real-life instances and case studies together with Kacker's own work on the rights of children, this is a guide for parents, policy makers, schoolteachers, paediatricians, childcare specialists - indeed, anyone with a stake in the welfare of minors. A timely and much-needed addition to the literature on child rights, Childhood Betrayed is also a call for change - nay a call to arms.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harper India
• Release date: Jul 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9789350297049

Loveleen Kacker

A leader with vision, skill and accomplishment, Loveleen has worked with governments, institutions and organizations. She brings in over three decades of planning and administrative experience, from a number of senior roles that she played in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), where she made impactful contributions in the areas of women and children, framing national policies on child welfare and drafting legislations for welfare schemes for the poor and disadvantaged sections of society. She has expertise in the areas of child education, child nutrition and child protection, and has worked for more than a decade in social sector ministries and departments. Loveleen took over the reins of Tech Mahindra Foundation as chief executive officer (CEO) in 2012. In less than three years, she transformed the Foundation's work. She invested in human resources, and is currently leading a team of almost fifty associates and interns at Tech Mahindra Foundation, and thousands of volunteers across Tech Mahindra Limited. With her vision for an educated and skilled India, Loveleen redefi ned the Foundation's CSR (corporate social responsibility) policy and repositioned its work into two key areas - education and employability. Loveleen is an accomplished writer with numerous publications in child welfare, art and culture to her credit. She has authored several novels and stories for children, which have fetched her national acclaim. She has been awarded the national-level Children's Book Trust Award for children's writers twice for her literary talents. Loveleen holds a master's degree in political science and a doctorate in social anthropology from Barkatullah University (Bhopal, India).

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PHYSICAL ABUSE

We owe our children, the most vulnerable citizens in our society, a life free of violence and fear.

– Nelson Mandela

What Is Physical Abuse?

The use of physical force to discipline children is as old as it is complex. Historically, not only has the use of physical force always existed, it has been widely embraced as an essential method of parenting. Even today, a large percentage of parents feel that a few solid whacks do a child no harm. However, the line between discipline and abuse is very thin and it does not take much for a whack to be administered with such force and intensity that it harms the child both physically and psychologically, sometimes for life.

The magnitude and extent of physical abuse began to be documented and understood only in the early twentieth century in the Western world. Even then, the debate about how much physical chastisement or corporal punishment was essential to discipline a child and how much amounted to abuse remained a matter of debate for a very long time. It took even longer to recognize the signs and symptoms of physical abuse and the impact it left on the minds and bodies of children.

Most adults agree that physical abuse occurs all too often, with damaging and sometimes deadly results. However, there is less agreement on the dividing line between positive discipline and abuse. Many parents fear that ‘sparing the rod will spoil the child’, while others believe that any form of physical punishment is cruel and ineffective in controlling a child’s behaviour.

Discipline is essential to life and society and it is necessary to teach children socially acceptable behaviour. It teaches children how to make responsible decisions and encourages moral, physical and intellectual development. Ultimately, children will do the right thing not because they fear external reprisal, but because they have internalized an acceptable standard initially presented by parents and other caretakers. Once children learn ‘correct’ behaviour, they gain self-confidence, a positive self-image, and behave in the way society expects them to.

Discipline can, however, degenerate into abuse at the hands of parents whose skills and self-control are both minimal. And abuse, in the long run, damages the child. While abusive behaviour may seem to result in positive changes in the child’s behaviour, the improvement is only temporary and is a result of fear and mistrust. Later in life, the child’s behaviour often manifests the hatred, revenge and hostility that he has learned from his parents.

Physical abuse means deliberate action on the part of the parent or caregiver that results in non-accidental physical injury or harm to the child. This may include severe beatings, burns, bites, broken bones, internal injuries, bruises and other physical marks on the body. The term ‘battered child syndrome’ (also referred to as ‘shaken baby syndrome’) was coined in 1962 and with it, the physical abuse of very small babies and children came to light for the first time. With the awareness and spread of human rights, child rights, child protection and juvenile justice, the concern with the physical abuse of children, both within and outside the home, became an issue and countries began to examine the concept, define the differences between discipline and abuse and pass laws to deal with the latter.

In 1979, Sweden passed a law prohibiting all corporal punishment by parents. Several countries like Norway, Denmark, Finland, Austria and Cyprus have also passed similar laws and there exist organizations throughout the world that advocate against corporal punishment carried out by parents.

In the US, in the state of New York, Section 412 of Social Services Law, defines a ‘physically abused child’ as a child less than eighteen years of age whose parent or any other person legally responsible for the child’s care, inflicts or allows to be inflicted upon the child physical injury by other than accidental means, which causes or creates substantial risk of death or serious disfigurement, or impairment of physical health, or loss or impairment of the function of any bodily organ.

India is yet to come up with an acceptable legal definition of physical abuse though it is work in progress. For any legal definition of physical abuse, we need to cover not only punishments for it, but should also create systems for mandatory reporting of child abuse cases and the fixing of responsibilities of individuals and agencies dealing with children.

Is Physical Punishment the Same as Physical Abuse?

Physical punishment is the use of physical force with the intent to inflict bodily pain but not injury for the purpose of correction or control. Physical abuse refers to an intentional or unintentional injury resulting from physical aggression. The difference between punishment and abuse is thus twofold. First, in abuse, the use of force results in visible harm or injury; second, in abuse, the use of force also puts the child at substantial risk of emotional injury.

TABLE 2.1

Harsh or Moderate Forms of Physical Punishment in the Previous Six Months as Reported by Mothers,

WorldSAFE Study

Some societies, including India, consider the use of physical force to discipline children an accepted practice. In a study (Hunter et al., 2000) to determine the type and severity of discipline practices in rural India, it was found that nearly half the mothers reported using severe verbal discipline and 42 per cent reported using severe physical discipline. In this qualitative investigation, parents described the disciplinary practices they deemed acceptable and unacceptable. While physical punishment was the norm and considered necessary for the socialization of children, the villagers spoke of punishments that they considered overly harsh, which included threats to send children away, invocations of ghosts and evil spirits to do the child harm, holding burning sticks to penises to control masturbation, branding and hanging by the hands or feet. Death threats were also found to be common. In many societies, relatively high rates of harsh discipline may reflect the societal sanction of violence towards children, and also foster the perception that physical abuse has fewer detrimental effects than other forms of abuse. However, this societal tolerance of corporal punishment is actually a cultural factor, theorized as a risk factor for physical abuse.

World Report on Violence and Health (WHO, 2002) has carried out a comparison of physical punishment meted out by mothers in Chile, Egypt, India, Philippines and the USA (see Table 2.1). And in the studies, Indian figures reflect high rates of both severe and moderate physical punishment. While these two studies have looked at physical punishment only in rural areas, the Child Abuse study studied physical abuse in both rural and urban areas. Its findings conform to those of the studies mentioned above. A large percentage of Indians seem to endorse the use of physical abuse to discipline children. This is so deep-rooted in the Indian psyche that it has almost become a norm. The problem is that it often degenerates into abuse, and yet there is little recognition of this possibility. All these studies point to the fact that societal sanction of violence in disciplining children lies at the root of the physical abuse of