05 April,2011 06:54 AM IST | | Soma Das
An online initiative to spread awareness about child sexual abuse has brought together 40 bloggers from across the country. Apart from survivor tales, there will be online discussions on social networking sites well
It was on a return journey from Lavasa in mid-March that bloggers Kiran Manral (39) and Monika Manchanda (33) started discussing incidents of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) in India.
Anuja Gupta, founder of NGO Rahi will field queries on prevention of abuse and the healing process
An April 2007 national study released by the Ministry for Women and Child Development showed that more than 53 per cent children (1 in 2 children) had reported facing sexual abuse.
Being from a non-NGO background, ad professional Manral and former software professional Manchanda decided to get people to talk about child abuse through a medium they were most comfortable with.
Special blog
They launched their special blog (www.csaawarenessmonth.wordpress.com) on April 1 to raise awareness through write-ups, first hand accounts by survivors, social networking campaigns and workshops for parents.
They managed to rope in 40 bloggers to write about child abuse on their blogs, which will be accessible from the CSA blog.
The bloggers include anonymous survivors of child abuse, concerned parents, working professionals, NRIs, portals such as South Asian Parenting, Women's Web and Blogadda as well as NGOs Tulir, Rahi and Enfold.
"A year ago, we had conducted a blogathon to generate awareness about learning disabilities but they targeted a limited section of the population.
This initiative is on a larger scale and we will organise weekly events across April. We want to highlight that abuse happens across society and is often perpetrated by people close to the child," said Manral.
There will be a chat session today on Twitter where Anuja Gupta, founder of NGO Rahi dealing with survivors of abuse, will field queries on prevention of abuse and the healing process, from 4.30 pm to 5.30 pm.
On April 9, director Onir and actor Sanjay Suri, whose movie I AM deals with the topic, will also take part in a chat session from 11 am to 12 pm.
"It's heartening that this movement wasn't conceptualised by NGOs. It shows that even common people care and are worried enough to do something about it," said Anuja Gupta. "When we started in 1996 people refused to admit child sexual abuse as happening in India.
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Such open forums are a big step forward," she added.
Coincidentally, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Bill, 2011 was introduced in the Rajya Sabha on March 23, which seeks to specifically address cases of child abuse and provide rigorous imprisonment of not less than 10 years for the offence.
Panel Discussion
Parents, teachers, doctors and NGOs have come together and formed an Early Childhood Association. They deal with issues faced by children such as stress, excessive competition and child abuse. They will be having a panel discussion at Podar Centre where these issues will be delved upon in detail.
At: Podar Centre, Parel
On: April 7 @ 3.30 pm
