Child Abuse And Violence

Physical Abuse

• Hitting or Clouting
• Hitting with plank or cane
• Brash
• Quivering

Sexual Abuse

• Physical abuse
• Caressing the private parts of the child
• Showing off the private parts of the children
• Forcing the child to show off their secluded parts
• Taking nude pictures of the child
• Making the child erotic
• Kissing the child without his or her permission
• Compelling a child view the pornographic material

Emotional Abuse

• Mortification of the children by snubbing, yelling or offending a child in public thus making them feel low of their honour
• Using abusive language and giving them bad names
• Comparing them either with siblings or other children

Child Neglect (girl child neglect)

• Neglecting a girl child
• Providing them with less food
• Letting the girl child taking responsibility of their children
• Discriminating on the basis of gender

Some of the Indicator of Child Abuse

    Physical Abuse

• Visible abusive marks on the body of the child that may be due to use of any outer object like stick, cane etc.
• Burn mark on the body parts of the children like burn marks of cigarette etc.
• Signs of mental trauma like depression, anger, etc.
• Child showing symptoms of avoiding going to the caretaker.
• Withdrawing of children from the society that is showing antisocial actions.
• Hesitant in giving details about any injury.
• Strange shyness or being lethargy and trying to avoid any kind of body contact.

 Sexual Abuse

• Dithering clothes or blood spots on the inner clothes.
• Inexplicable urine infection or infection of the private body parts or being affected by sexually transmitted ailments.
• Not being able to disclose the particulars of person who had sexually molested.
• Irregularities in sleeping patterns.
• In depth knowledge of sex in comparison to other children of same age group or signs of seductive acts.
• Detrimental academic performance.
• Problem while moving or sitting.

    Emotional Abuse

• Changes in dietary pattern
• Speech syndromes
• Noticeable declination in growth of the child both physically and mentally
• Harsh conduct towards other children, animals or other non-living objects
• Over demanding, regular complainant behaviour

Cause for Concern

The above mentioned report has been formulated as per the “Study on child abuse: India 2007”. To summarize this study Indian was sectioned into six different zones viz. North, South, East, West, Central and North-East. This study was gathered from thirteen different states and it took almost six months to capture this data. The research was conducted on the children whose age group varied from five to eighteen years of age.

What to do if you Suspect a Child is being Abused?

The above listed syndromes can also be due to other factors than child abuse. People are made aware by involving experts immediately as soon as such syndromes are shown by the children.

Actions to be taken in case one encounters a child being abused:-

• Making call to 1091 about any encounter of child abuse
• Referring the abused child for any professional seek like social worker, psychologists etc. These experts have been trained to completely assist such children and their families to come over any abuse. Each district or group of district is equipped with Special Police Juvenile Unit who can be contacted for support.
• Don’t blame the child for the happening.