When mum's mum: Munro case shows culture of silence around child sexual abuse

"Didi, can you move me to a hostel? I can’t stay at home.” Sukanya, a 13-year-old, popped the question to a social worker who was visiting her govt school in Bengaluru. When the worker asked why, she deflected the queries and then just backtracked from her request altogether. A month later, when the worker went back, Sukanya’s voice had an urgency, “I need to move out of my home now.” She still would not say why. It was only after an hour-long counselling session that the truth tumbled out. “Sukanya was being abused by her father who would slip into her room at night and assault her,” says Kushi Kushalappa, director, support and rehabilitation at NGO Enfold. She resisted but he threatened to falsely accuse her of having an affair with a boy in the neighbourhood. The father, a cab driver and the main earning member of the family, was also a careful person. He had gifted the mother a set of anklets, so he was forewarned about her movement.The abuse continued for over six months till Sukanya’s father started asking her about her period. It dawned on her that he might be contemplating penetrative sex, and this left her in a panic. She complained to her mother about the father’s behaviour, but to her shock, her mother accused Sukanya of flirting with the neighbourhood boy and of having loose morals. The implication that Sukanya had ‘asked for it’ is a common way to brush off child sex abuse (CSA) in cases where family members are involved.It’s the reason why Nobel laureate and writer Alice Munro’s daughter Andrea Robin Skinner’s public admission about being sexually abused by her stepfather Gerald Fremlin when she was nine struck a chord with so many people. Though from a different socio-economic strata, Munro behaved no different from Sukanya’s mom. medium111564216Skinner said that when she told her mother about the abuse in 1992, Munro “reacted exactly as I had feared she would, as if she had learned of an infidelity”. Munro stayed with Fremlin till his death and blamed Skinner for telling her too late. Kushalappa, whose NGO helped Sukanya file a FIR against her father in 2018 and move to a safe space, says children fear they won’t be believed by adults. “Very often, the perpetrator has created a stellar reputation amongst other family members so that people end up disbelieving the survivor.” Even at 13, Sukanya knew that outing her father would have consequences for her family and that she would be cut off from them. She also came under immense pressure to withdraw the court case. Just like Sukanya’s family was dependent on the father’s income, many others could be economically and socially dependent on the perpetrator. Children are also taught to respect elders and authority figures and often that leaves them with feelings of guilt, shame and hinders them from fully expressing themselves. 111714146Beware of kinAlankaar Sharma, who teaches social work at the University of Wollongong, Australia, conducted a study on sex abuse on boys and men in India. He says that many people still believe that strangers are the biggest threat when research shows that most children are abused by people who are known to them and have power over them. A 2007 govt study found that one in two children had faced one or more forms of sexual abuse. In 95% of cases the abuser is someone close to the child like a family member or relative, according to NCRB data. ShowQuotesSharma says children and even adult survivors often feel vulnerable or anxious about disclosing abuse when the perpetrator is someone they know and care for. “Other people in survivors’ lives like immediate or extended family members, friends, teachers may also contribute to this silencing of survivors by doubting or disbelieving them, or asking them to ‘forgive, forget, and move on’ to not upset the relational or social bonds between themselves and the perpetrators.” Patriarchal and harmful questions such as ‘why didn’t the victim say no’, ‘how could the abuse have happened without the victim wanting it’, ‘what did they do to invite the perpetrator’s attention’, and ‘why didn’t they disclose sooner if they were so uncomfortable with it,’ contribute in major ways to keeping CSA under wraps, he says. Boys worry about the added pressure of appearing unmanly. In his study published in The British Journal of Social Work, Sharma spoke to abuse survivors such as 30-year-old John, who was first abused when he was six. He was assaulted by a relative at a family wedding after which he complained of pain in the rectal area. When asked further, John told his mother that he had been abused by an uncle at the wedding. He even named him. “She said, ‘Are you sure?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I am sure.’…So she said, ‘Okay, now go and do your homework, we’ll talk about it later.’ That was the only response. And the later never happened.”Warning signsPsychiatrist Dr Harish Shetty says there are warning signs that people could be alert to. For instance, two Mumbai-based children, six and nine, refused to allow their father to touch them or bathe them as he usually did. It was later found that he was abusing them. Even vague signs in a child, like insomnia, being averse to touch, averse to eating bananas or anything creamy, irritability, anger against the family could be signs of sexual abuse, he says. ShowQuotesOne child he counseled would wear long-sleeved clothes even during the summer while another was acing exams, but always tearful and unhappy. “Schools and teachers should be in a state of heightened sensitivity.”POCSO hurdles India enacted the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) in 2012 which provides for a survivor-centric approach, and though it has increased reporting of cases (child rape cases are up 96% from 2016 to 2022, as per a CRY analysis), there are still many hurdles. “Our laws are geared towards stranger abuse,” says Persis Sidhva, child rights lawyer and director at Rati Foundation. Most cases are covered up even before a FIR is registered, and those that go to court can also end up being thrown out when the survivor turns hostile under pressure or coercion. There are challenges like jail-like living conditions of children’s remand homes and problems with accessing child-friendly provisions like interim compensation.But most urgently, there is a need to create a culture that promotes open communication around personal safety and sexual abuse and validates children’s emotions and experiences, says Manjeer Mukherjee, sociologist and senior director with NGO Arpan. “Establishing safe spaces where children can discuss their concerns without fear of judgement is necessary. Building a support network of adults who understand that keeping children safe is the responsibility of every adult is key. In essence, a paradigm shift is required to move from a culture of silence and disbelief to one of support and proactive engagement,” she says.All survivor names have been changed to protect identity