Special: Let's talk about sex

One in every two children in India is sexually, physically or emotionally abused.

Seventy per cent of abused children do not report it to anyone.

Maternal and paternal uncles are the biggest culprits in most abuse cases.

Boys are as susceptible to abuse as girls

Spare the rod and spoil the child – in a country where this age-old dictum seems to work comfortably with both parents and teachers, a shocking study has confirmed that there is a conspiracy of silence surrounding child abuse in India.

The Government has released its first ever study on child abuse in India and it shows that every second child in India is abused. The report comes at a time when there is a raging debate in Maharashtra and Karnataka on sex education.

The sex abuse and sex education were the two big issues that were debated on CNN-IBN show Lets Talk About Sex.

On the panel of experts were NCP leader Sachin Ahir, St Xaviers lecturer Pratibha Naithani, psychologist Sonya Mehta, designer Hasina Jethmalani and columnist and lifestyle editor of DNA Malvika Sanghvi.

Sex education: Just about birds and bees?

Within three months of the ghastly Nithari murders in UP, the Ministry of Women and Child Development released a report on child abuse. The disturbing truth is that maximum numbers of children are abused by people who they trust.

It states that every one or two of every child in India is sexually abused. The ones to push the child into the ghastly act are none other than maternal and paternal uncles, or sometimes close relatives. Astoundingly these are the people that a child holds in a position of trust. Does it show that there is a huge amount of sexual dysfunction in all our families?

“I don’t think that would be the right conclusion,” said St Xaviers lecturer Pratibha Naithani.

“We must compare the issue of child sexual abuse in India with a country like USA which has the most liberal and free-minded society. The abuse cases are high in US as well. Thus we can’t say that since we are supposedly this sexually deprived society, that people are indulging in such crimes,” Naithani added.

Psychologist Sonya Mehta seemed to disagree with the view.

“Sex is a dirty word here. It is not something that we discuss openly in our country. On the other hand, our media is has gone one step further in getting explicit about the issue. Look at our ads. They are so full of sexual connotations and implications that a natural level of curiosity,” she added.

There is clear divide between people who want sex to be treated as an open subject and those who like to keep it under wraps.

Sex: A 'banned' word?

“I am not scared of it. But the question is on what platform should it be discussed with the kids,” observed NCP leader Sachin Ahir.

Ahir said he doubts whether it is really correct to explicitly discuss an adult subject with the school-going kids. Adolescents at this stage are only aware of their textbooks and studies. Exposing them to an alien concept may or may not bring out the desired results.

However, DNA columnist and editor Malvika Sanghvi disagreed with the view. “During prohibition in America it was seen that more alcohol was being consumed because there was a whole industry of bootlegging. Similarly if we beat sex out of our lives and push it under the carpet, we might end up facing bigger problems than we can imagine,” she said.

Malvika said the only way to deal with sexual abuse is to bring the subject out of the closet. Telling kids what’s right and what’s wrong is important, but it’s even more crucial to make them aware so that they are able to identify and judge someone’s malafide intentions and behaviour.

“We must empower our children. Let them deal with it. Help them create a system within themselves so that they judge things for themselves,” she added.

Haseena Jethmalani agreed with Malvika and Sonya and said, “Sex is taboo in our country and by doing that you are almost titillating the child. It is very important to inform the child from a certain age. And the Government cannot decide the age and ban sex education. If it disagrees with a certain methodology, they should come up with a solution.”

So in most cases what happens is that the child is on one hand abused, and on the other hand not informed.

Dealing with abuse

“We are drawing a wrong conclusion if we are connecting a sexually repressed society with child sexual abuse,” Naithani said.

When Naithani was asked why does an Indian uncle abuse his niece, she said, “In USA you will get examples of a father abusing the boy and the girl child as well.”

She felt that sex doesn’t have to be brought to class but must be dealt at a family and community level. But Sonya Mehta pointed out that most parents are embarrassed to talk about sex and haven’t received sex education themselves.

A parent amongst the audience accepted that he would be embarrassed to talk about sex, and hoped that an environment would be created wherein people shouldn’t think it to be an embarrassment.

What is abuse?

When asked what if there was a cultural definition of abuse, Malvika Sanghvi said, “The solution of abuse is to go to a child intuitively as an adult, as a mother and talk to him.”

She added that, “Regardless of being an urban or a rural child, a child knows how rto differentiate a good and a bad touch. And no government or moral police is a decider of what is a good or a bad touch.”

Pooja amongst the audience, who works with an NGO that deals with child sexual abuse, disagreed with the term bad or good touch. She said there is nothing bad about sex. So it should be a safe or an unsafe touch.

How best to impart sex education

At a time when there is a public health strategy all over the world, and we must try and teach children about sex education, why should there be an attempt to stop it?

“We are worried about the method. We have never said that we want a total ban of sex education,” Sachin Ahir said.

A parent in the audience said that the government should focus on real education first and not on sex education. A child should only be taught about sex once they are mature.

Parents felt that the books that are now banned emphasised only on the physical aspect and positions of sex and ignored the real issue.

So does that mean we are confusing se with pornography?

“We are trying to debate two topics - sexual abuse and what is safe and unsafe sex,” Ahir said.

A student pointed out that as a student of class seven when they asked questions about sex and pregnancy in school during a talk about periods, they were told it wasn’t the right age.

She added that it was at that time that children turn to the Internet and surf pornography.

Moral vs health issue

Pratibha Naithani was asked whether she was tying a moral question with that of health, and she said it was the media, not her, that has tied up the word moral with her.

“I have never raised the issue of morality either in my PIL, or any of the talk shows,” she said.

She added that she is not for the ban of sex education. But that education should be legally and psychologically correct.

Curiosity and experimentation

One of the girls in the audience pointed out that when for the first time in school there were told about sex education, there were so many questions that they wanted to ask.

“We are very curious at that age. We have all seen that ad on TV – ‘Is it really that big’? So obviously if it is so openly implicated everywhere, children will obviously have questions,” she said.

That clearly shows that children want to know, so why should one stop them?

“We don’t want a total ban. All we said was the manner of the question was improper. It has to be debated,” Ahir said.

The audience however had varying opinions. While one of the students said sex education should be introduced gradually, a parent felt it should be introduced from class six, but it should be a like a seminar held twice or thrice a year and boys and girls should be spoken to separately.

Haseena Jethmalani was quick to react. “The sexual act takes place between a boy and a girl. So why should you separate them.”

There is so much secrecy, hypocrisy about sex. Why should we not open it disinvest sex?

Naithani asked that would opening up like the West going to help us in a way?

But Sonya Mehta felt that we may not want to become an imitative society, but certainly an educated and informed society and we cannot do that by constantly pushing it under the rug.

“Most parents would want their daughters to be virgins and be married at 18, and be at the mercy of their husbands. He might want to have sex eight times a day and she may believe that that is her duty,” Haseena Jethmalani said.

A parent said that education has to be imparted by the parent in a proper manner, and if they can’t do that then the teacher and counsellors in school have to bring the parent to the school, and make them aware because today we are living in a totally different era, and parents are going through that transition.

Is Indian society hypocritical about sex?

When asked to a young student, is Indian society being hypocritical about sex and do we have too many double standards about sex, he said, “Yes the Indians are hypocritical about sex. We are Indian we are not West. We are the country, which has the highest number of HIV positive people. In recent times we heard about the Nithari killing case, we need the sex education. ”

Professor Naithani agreed to what the student says. She said, “The proposed education programme which the government has come up with, it has statements like it is a only a condom which protects you hundred percent against HIV AIDS where as the condom companies themselves say we are not a hundred percent protection against pregnancy, STD and HIV. Are we actually creating prevention against HIV?”

Talking about whether the society is deeply hypocritical about sex, Malvika said, “Yes, and why abstain from something, nobody is saying sex is bad you abstain from something which you look at in a negative manner. ”

“Parents would like their children to believe that they actually didn’t have sex. But why don’t parents realize that this is the platform to talk about your values – we as a family believes you should wait till you are married but you cannot have that discussion unless you present the facts openly,” Sonya Mehta said while talking about parent child relationship and education in family about sex.

Experts say parents in India see their children as their possession and don’t take them as an individual and for that they don’t communication with that person properly at least on the issues like sex.

Talking about this a student said, “My parents do communication with me and I want to say that people are not borne with sex education and fact is some point in time everyone needs that knowledge.”

Do children need to know about sex?

“We in sixth and seventy standard learnt about sex because that is the age when you achieve a certain level of maturity and that’s when you want to know about it,” a student said when asked about whether children need to be taught about sex during early age.

Talking about the sex education in schools and the procedure a school teacher sitting in the audience said, “Sex education should be there but the syllabus should be changed the procedure should be changed. ”

Sonya Mehta, who is a psychologist, said that yes children need to know about sex either from their teacher or from the parents and the education should start somewhere by which the children can have better knowledge about it.

“There has to be meaningful partnership between the school, the parents and students. Information should come from variety of sources. If the mother is too embraced to talk about sex pull in your paediatrician pull in your gynaecologist. Children are talking and they are curious. We have to provide them full knowledge,” she said.

Sachin Ahir said that there should be an education one in the way manner is more important moral and biologically. The education starts from your house and it should start from there but it does not mean it should not be there in school. But the manner you are going to present this thing is more important.

“There is certain age when every child starts to become curious about matters like sex. At this point in time if enough correct information is not provided to the child, the child starts looking for information from other sources which might not be as accurate as scientifically correct,” another young student put forth his idea.

When asked to the audience do most people surf Internet for sexual content, majority of them said ‘nobody’.

“Children will be curious and they will get information but it depends how we can give them the accurate information,” a parent said.

Should we be worrying about what kind of content we are actually teaching or should we just simply be providing information to whoever wants it?

A teacher sitting in the audience said, “I think we should be worrying what type of content we are teaching because in terms of what is acceptable to the child. Because I think it will be very individual specific. So that’s where the family or the parents come in to the picture.”

Sachin Ahir giving his last comment on the sex education among the children said, “Government is very serious, if there is a need yes there should be sex education but in what manner and it has to be review.”

While Naithani said, “If you want to introduce any educative programme it has to be legally, psychologically morally correct. Give them the full information, scientifically correct information.”

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