Child Abuse in Chandigarh

As reported in the Chandigarh Newsline of IndiaExpress.com, no one is calling the psychs for help with child abuse, despite several recent cases in the local news.

Even the recent spate of child sexual abuse cases reported in the media (as many as eight cases in June itself and four cases in the last four days only), have failed to shake up the enforcement agencies.

The evidence, to say the least, is damning. The Women and Child Support Unit, having especially been set up to provide counselling to abuse victims, has not registered a single case of child sexual abuse.

Approach the various child counselling departments at PGI or Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), Sector 32 and you get almost the same response. Counsellors at the child helpline at PGI also say they receive no such calls, the PGI Psychiatry Department gives a rough estimate of handling some 20 cases annually and the Psychiatry Department at GMCH again has no specific data tabulated on the incidence of child abuse in the city.

‘‘There is no doubt about it. Child sexual abuse is rampant in our society and across the globe. And it is quite common in Chandigarh. In a 1996 survey done with schoolchildren in Delhi, 60 per cent were found to have been sexually abused,’’ says Dr B S Chavan, head, Department of Psychiatry, GMCH-32.

Ask him why no data is available and he responds, ‘‘Most cases that we get are referred to us from other departments and later turn out to be sexual abuse cases. So, we don’t tabulate these figures. But yes, it is our collective responsibility to maintain a record, form self-help family groups where parents discuss the issue in seminars, forums. Conferences and continued medical education programmes for doctors on the issue should also be held.’’

Something does not add up here. Whose side are they on?