An Invisible Crime

In the Indian legal system, child sexual abuse does not exist

Last week the Supreme Court reversed the acquittal of two Britons Allan Waters and Duncan Grant and upheld their convictions by a trial court. In a Mumbai shelter for street children called Anchorage, they had sexually abused children for years. One victim whose testimony was crucial said that from the age of 14-15, they made him perform oral sex on them. Another victim too deposed: “Allan used to take my penis in his mouth. He might have done this act with me on 30 to 40 occasions… Duncan did this act with me on many occasions. When this was done for the first time with me, I felt bad.”

Duncan and Allan both got six years’ rigorous imprisonment but the crime they were sentenced for was ‘unnatural voluntary sex’—Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. Nishit Kumar of Childline, the NGO that fought the case on behalf of the victims, says, “There is no other way to convict child abusers.” The reason why straightforward rape of minors needs to be couched under the creative interpretation of a 100-year-old outdated law (it’s the same section which criminalised gay sex till recently) is that India’s legal system does not recognise a crime called child sexual abuse. Only one state, Goa, has a law for it.

A nationwide law against child abuse has been in the making for years. It is waiting to be passed in Parliament, but whether it will happen in this session is uncertain.  If the law had been passed, Duncan and Waters would have got a minimum of 10 years in prison. Nishit Kumar says, “In the UK, the punishment is up to 30 years. They would never have got out from prison for something like this.” As things stand, one of them will be out in a year and the other in three years, having served the rest of their time as undertrials.

A law is absolutely necessary because child abuse is not a normal crime. The abuser gains the trust of the child much before the abuse begins, a process called grooming. In many countries that have child abuse laws, grooming is a crime, but in India no law recognises it. And the prevalence of child abuse is shocking.  In 2007, the Ministry of Child and Women Development did a study and 53.2 per cent of children surveyed reported having ‘faced one or more forms of sexual abuse’. Which means that if you have a child there’s a 50-50 possibility he or she’s been abused. But the statute has no name for it.

About The Author

Madhavankutty Pillai

Madhavankutty Pillai has no specialisations whatsoever. He is among the last of the generalists. And also Open chief of bureau, Mumbai  

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