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Goan Priests Find Many Child Abuse Cases Happen In The Home

Updated: January 24, 2007 05:00 PM GMT
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Two Catholic priests who work with children in Goa say about 45 percent of child-abuse cases they have encountered in the western Indian state involve abuse within the child´s home.

"Even if a girl is abused by her father, the daughter refrains from informing her mother because she is confused whether what daddy is doing is wrong," says Father Socorro Mendes, director of Goa and Daman archdiocese´s Family Service Centre. "She is aware of the implications should she reveal it to her mother, so she prefers to bear it silently in order to safeguard the unity of her parents."

Salesian Father Arvind Severes, who directs Childline, a Salesian-run NGO, has found that when children are abused, often it is by someone known to them. In many cases, he says, a father begins to makes sexual advances on his daughter after his wife informs him that the girl has reached puberty.

In separate interviews with UCA News, the two priests said about 45 percent of child-abuse cases reported to their centers took place within the child´s home.

When the offender is a neighbor, according to Father Severes, the victim´s parents often refrain from prosecution for fear of tarnishing their own family´s reputation. The parents also fear possible reprisals from the accused, since they cannot be sure the case would lead to conviction.

Another problem Father Severes cited is lack of support from neighbors and relatives when the accused is a neighbor. In some cases, he added, the victims complain only months after the crime is committed, by which time evidence has been destroyed.

The Salesian priest said he sometimes feels "pained and pushed against the wall" when parents refuse to lodge a police complaint. "Up to now, not a single person has come forward to bring the issue to its logical end," he stated.

To combat this social evil, NGOs and Church organizations are conducting, in schools, an awareness campaign on child rights. Most child-abuse cases are unearthed at these programs, Father Mendes said. Children "often wait till the talk is over," he added, to "privately ask" whether they would become pregnant if someone kissed them or fondled their sexual organs.

Another form of abuse is verbal, the priest continued. He recalled several cases of drunken fathers discouraging children from studying. Some break household items to terrorize their children, he said.

Father Mendes also said child counselors hesitate to discuss the issue with parents, as most of them would deny the cases and perhaps torment the children later for disclosing "house secrets" to others. Children reveal the cases at the awareness program only after counselors promise not to tell their parents, Father Mendes pointed out.

The diocesan priest said he plans to highlight this issue in his archdiocese and suggest that children not be left in the home unaccompanied, or allowed to sleep in a neighbor´s house or take joy rides with cousins or uncles.

The priests´ findings add to the results of a 2005 study by Child Rights in Goa. The secular NGO surveyed 1,140 children and found that 96 percent of them reported being abused in one form or another, sexual abuse in 45 percent of the cases. Most abuse occurred in hotels, buses, beaches, homes and schools.

Amid reports of increasing cases of child abuse, the state in 2003 enacted the Goa Children´s Act and a year later set up a children´s court. In 2005, the law was amended to categorize sexual abuses -- grave sexual assault, sexual assault and incest.

Grave sexual assault includes offences such as making children pose for pornographic films, making children have sex with each other and deliberately causing injury to the sexual organs of a child.

Since the court was set up, the state has registered 140 cases, including 132 involving sexual abuse. However, N. Desai, director of Child Rights in Goa, says the trials are not child-friendly and often treat the victim as the accused.

In 1991, Goa unearthed a pedophile racket that Freddy Peats, a 71-year-old Eurasian, ran under the guise of a home for destitute children.

END

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