At a panel discussion held to mark the launch of ‘Voice For Justice’ campaign, speakers talk about reasons behind rape, why rape laws are ineffective & how to tackle sexual exploitation of children.

New Delhi: Every year, 2 million children are sexually exploited worldwide but less than 1 per cent of the perpetrators are ever convicted.

To address this, Free A Girl, a global NGO, launched a social media campaign, ‘Voice For Justice’, Thursday to mobilise people and raise awareness about sexual exploitation of children and gather support for their proper rehabilitation. The campaign encourages women to raise their voice for the survivors who are not able to do so.

“Free A Girl has given me the opportunity to study law. Now, I have graduated with LLB and I want to fight for justice against heinous crimes of child prostitution,” said Sinaj, a survivor, during a panel discussion Thursday.

Sinaj is also one of the first graduates of the School for Justice — an award-winning initiative launched in India in 2017 to educate survivors of sexual exploitation so they can become lawyers, para-legals, police officers, socials workers, sociologist or journalists and fight against child prostitution.  Free A Girl will be launching such another such school in Nepal this year.

During the panel discussion, which was a joint initiative by ThePrint and Dutch NGO Fleishman Hillard, experts discussed the reasons behind sexual exploitation and why laws fail to act as a deterrent.

Other panellists included Tara Kaushal, author of ‘Why Men Rape— An Indian Undercover Investigation’, Supreme Court lawyer Meenakshi Arora, activist Pranaadhika Sinha Devburman, and Bishwo Khadka, chairperson of Maiti Nepal, a non-profit dedicated to survivors of human trafficking. The session was moderated by Ananya Bhardwaj, Senior Assistant Editor at ThePrint.

‘All sorts of men rape’

When asked about what could be leading men to rape, Kaushal said, “I applied a framework of social class. All sorts of men rape. Their reasons for doing so are different within different social milieus.”

She explained that there are two broad ways rape happens. When the perpetrator objectifies the victim and doesn’t really know it is rape, and second when the perpetrator looks at the victim as fully human but wants to assert power and pain on them. The conversation then moved on to rape laws.

Bhardwaj said, “Rape laws were made stringent after the 16 December 2012 gangrape case. There were nationwide protests, pressure on the government, rapists were hanged and the trial was fast-tracked. Yet, it didn’t act as a deterrent.”

Taking the discussion further, she asked: “Are stronger laws a solution?”

Arora, a senior counsel at the Supreme Court, replied that stringent laws are never the solution.

“When a judge has to render a judgment and convict an accused for a minimum of 20 years, he knows if there is a slightest of mistake the man goes in for 20 years, then there is a hesitation which creeps in,” she said.

This is why conviction rates are low, Arora explained, adding that “prescription of minimum sentences without giving the judge any discretion in cases is not a good idea, it will reduce your number of convictions.”

Sexual exploitation of children

Bhardwaj then posed a question on children who are sexually exploited and how it affects their life. “Sometimes, a child is not even able to comprehend that it was an abuse, many who dare to speak out to their families are often discouraged. How does it affect their life?”

Devburman, founder of the campaign One Million Against Child/Adult Sexual Abuse, explained that India needs a culture of “name and shame”.

“We don’t have an environment where it is safe for children to speak out about anything they are going through. It is because we are not sensitised enough to have the right reaction or the right empathy, either to listen or to respond and move on to support filing cases,” she said.

Khadka explained how an entire “package” was needed to address these issues, saying only stringent laws and policies are not enough.

“Since 1993, Maiti Nepal has been working on awareness, advocacy, prosecution, prevention, rehabilitation, rescue, repatriation, income generation and restoration of the trafficking survivors. It is a package that needs to work together,” he explained.

Source: THEPRINT TEAM 30 October, 2020 11:08 am IST