Child Sexual Abuse: What is CSA?
The following stories are real experiences of victims who faced CSA. Their identity is kept anonymous.
Stealing her childhood…
Our team of PCT was once taking a class for the girls of a Government Polytechnic College. We gave them a questionnaire. The paper had questions to assess the awareness levels of students before we began the awareness session on Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) and ways to deal with it. At the end of the assessment, there is space to write about any CSA encounters they must have faced.
The students filled it and returned them back to us. One of the girls wrote about an experience of hers:
“I’m thankful to God that the worst has not happened. Every time I go home for holidays, there is this elder brother who often touches me uncomfortably. As I am usually at hostel except during my holidays, it is not that much of a problem. I try to avoid him as much as I can and make sure no one knows about these embarrassing incidents. I’m grateful to God that I was not abused; I had narrow escapes.”
Confusions about Child Sexual Abuse: What is CSA, What isn’t?
Before you read further, I’m going to ask you a question. Answer it in your head, alright? Do you also think that the girl was saved from being abused? Let me ask this in another way, why doesn’t the girl think of what happened to her as abuse? What qualifies as sexual abuse as opposed to what is normal?
If you are like the girl, you wouldn’t think that what she experienced is abuse. And that, my friend, is a problem.
Doubts on CSA!
Remember what the young girl wrote in the questionnaire? “the worst has not happened” and “I was not abused; I had a narrow escape”. There are so many misconceptions about CSA and so much lack of awareness surrounding it. Most victims don’t know that bad touch is also CSA. It is legally a jailable offense. If perpetrators knew this, wouldn’t they be more inhibited before abusing the power imbalance with a child?
Rape is the worst possible sexual abuse in the eyes of many- including this young child. Aren’t bad touch and anything less than rape equally bad? Such incidents take away the childhood of the victims, they take away feelings of safety within their own bodies and they lose trust in their surroundings.
The victim is left to deal with a lifetime of confusion and trauma. It negatively impacts their quality of life. Their basic perceptions of safety and happiness in life will be tainted. These acts are offenses not only on the physical level they are also psychological offenses.
Many adult survivors of CSA share that, they didn’t think at the time of abuse that they were being abused because they were not being raped. Rape is the worst if we only think on the physical level. Other acts of CSA are also equally traumatic if we consider their effects on the psychological level. It is only while growing up that they realize and start identifying what happened; most often, they experience trauma as an aftereffect.
The psychological impact may scar the child for life.
We believe that creating awareness about Sexual Abuse and Sexual Exploitation
is an efficient way to prevent it.
Understanding CSA: Seeing beyond the Physical
An existential truth is that we are not just a physical body. You and I are more than physical bodies carrying around a mass. We have emotional, social, psychological, and intellectual dimensions to us. Shouldn’t we consider the loss of control over one’s own body and loss of belief in a safe life as severely as we consider physical abuse?
I’m a person
Without a doubt, we all classify rape, attempted rape, or violent molestations as acts of Sexual Abuse because of the extreme violence at the physical level. Overlooking the effect of abuse on the psychological setup is the reason why most do not think of any action less than rape as Sexual Abuse. But, what about the damage CSA causes to the other aspects of a victim?
Psychologists have been studying the long term psychological effects of CSA. When a perpetrator sexually abuses a child, they take away a happy frame of mind for life. They violate the child’s right for protection as granted by the constitution of India. If one tries to damage the feeling of safety, a healthy mind frame, and happiness of childhood life, it is Child Abuse.
CSA has longstanding effects on the psychological and emotional dimensions. The government is liable to protect not just the physical body of a person but also has an obligation to protect against psychological and emotional damage.
Aftereffects.
Pavani Sairam.
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