Nearly one in three girls experience sexual abuse in India

There has been awareness about child sexual abuse in recent times but it remains woefully unenough. The magnitude of the issue was again highlighted when the journal Lancet published a global study on it. The authors looked at pubicly available sources of data in   204 countries for prevalence of sexual violence against children (SVAC). Findings were categorised by age and gender, and the first time the abuse was experienced.

The results were striking. Almost one in five female children, or 18.9 per cent, had been a victim of it. Sexual violence was also overwhelmingly first experienced by females, as high as 67.3 percent, before the age of 18.

For India, child sexual abuse statistics were even worse. The country ranked among the top. As many as 30.8 percent, or nearly one in three women, were survivors of it. The paper noted, ‘Given the high prevalence of SVAC across the globe, particularly in locations where we have survey data (eg, India, South Africa, and the USA), efforts to measure and monitor prevalence in data sparse locations are urgently needed in order to better understand the patterns of SVAC, to highlight it as a priority for policy makers, and to track progress towards eliminating sexual violence against children.’

Males were also victims. Globally the average was 14.8 percent for them, which was slightly lesser than for females. But in India, the gulf was much larger. Male child sexual abuse was 13.5 percent, lesser than the worldwide average and far below the 30.8 percent for girls.

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