Shout, Yell or silent 'No' : Understanding and challenging child sexual abuse

“If someone tries to do something bad with me, but then they put the blame on me saying that I agreed before but I said no after. If people don’t believe in my No stating that I agreed before; then what will happen? What do I do?”

We conducted our last and final workshop ‘Prevention of child sexual abuse’ with adolescents to build understanding on what is child sexual abuse beyond the regular conversation on good touch and bad touch along with making sure that the participants understand that any form of sexual abuse is wrong, they can say No to it even if the abuser is someone they trust and comes in their own family. The session began with screening of film ‘Komal’ by Child line followed by brief discussion. Gathering the thoughts and learnings from the film, we explained child sexual abuse in elaborate manner including everything that comes under the umbrella of sexual abuse.

It was also crucial to mention why there is strong need to talk about CSA, because every child is at risk – the available data, rampant increases in cases of violence and deafening silence around the issue proves it. Feeling of shame, guilt, blame, sadness, anger, betrayal, self-blame and loneliness that comes with the experience of CSA was also shared. We have been talking about body, sexual organs, changes in body as part of puberty along with consent for over a month now preparing them to be comfortable with their body, understanding it and then gaining that capacity to know what touch is good or bad to be them more than just 4 parts of the body as instructed during good touch and bad touch sessions.

This was lot of information for the participants to process and we knew that from start that’s how the sequence of the workshops are decided so that by the time we come to child sexual abuse workshop they are prepared to take this information.

The next part of the workshop dealt ‘how to challenge CSA’. This is core of our work at Sahas – to build the capacity to say NO to violence so we yelled NO over and over again as a practice thereby paving the way to say No to any or whatever touch of things that makes you uneasy, uncomfortable or not happy. The conversation on trusted adult took an interesting turn when one of the participants shared that she trust her friend and would share anything with her. However on asking if she could help her out when encountered with CSA, she refused stating that both of them are of same age. With this point, the definition of trusted adult was established. It was also important to point out that if you go to trusted adult, and they don’t believe you or listen to you then don’t lose hope – try and keep saying it, if they still don’t believe you go to other trusted adult! It’s not your fault that this happened to you, it’s not – the person doing that is wrong and you must seek help.  

It was at this point we talked about POCSO act and helpline number for children in distress. With this information, we took a pause to give participants some time to take in the information and process it also opening the circle for questions or sharing.

As this was our last workshop, we invited participants to ask questions or raise doubts:

“Is it important that we get periods after every 28 days?”

“What is the reason behind irregular periods? What do we do if we have irregular periods?”

“What is nightfall? Does it cause any harm?”

“What is the role of sperm and bone marrow?”

“Does our height stop increasing once our periods start?”

Because of the questions around wet dreams, we also took opportunity to engage on masturbation.

In the last part of the workshop, we invited the participants to share their feedback and topics that we should have included or given information on –

“What I learnt here was openness! Openness to talk about issues that are related to me, my body. I travel in bus, auto a lot so if someone touches me inappropriately then I won’t hesitate to say No and say that no one can touch me without my wish. Also if someone do something wrong – it’s their fault and they are wrong – it’s definitely not my fault or any child’s fault”

“I learnt about maintaining hygiene and cleanliness during periods and in general; to protect oneself, and also to raise voice if I see something wrong happening and not be silent”

“The one thing that I will always remember from the session is to be able to talk freely, without hesitation or shame because this is important to us”

“The best part was I can ask any question openly. I could ask you anything about my body, share things that I could normally never share even with my parents”

 “I loved the conversation on condom; the movie was brilliant – it was interesting to see how father explain his 10 year old boy about sex and condoms. Here it seems as if it is a crime, it is something that we should be ashamed of. I feel so relieved and confident now”

“The best part of the workshops was we can ask any questions, you would always smile and answer any and every question with so much ease that all the discomfort went away with the question”

When an adolescent says that they can ask any question around their body freely, without any shame or they will say No to any unsafe touch – it’s like our work here is done! That’s what Sahas aims at. I am so happy and overjoyed that we could implement our gender, sexuality and reproductive health program online for the first time. It seemed so ambitious at first, we didn’t know we could pull it because creating safe and inclusive space on ground while sitting face to face with participants takes so much effort, how in the world we could pull this online with all this technology and mobilization hassles. But I am extremely proud to say that Yes we did it !!

This program won’t have been possible without our collaboration with My Perch. Raj, Nupur and Happy were driving force for our sessions, their level of commitment, dedication and responsibility amazes me – they did extensive mobilization, they participate, inform participants and are also engaged in tons of activities along with this. I am so glad to have them as our team members for this intervention and many more things in the future.

Decoding the mysterious shame and stigma around sex, condoms and consent

“If Shivam kisses Radha, she won’t slap him or engage with him as in kiss him back. She will just move out of the class. She would be confused as to what just happened”

We began our third workshop on ‘Love, sex and consent’ with the adolescents by collating their thoughts, feelings and whether they have heard anything around the word ‘Sex’.  While everyone was busy scribbling their thoughts, one of the participants was looking elsewhere but not actually writing anything. On being asked whether they have already completed the activity, the girl responded, “I am fine, this is okay. This doesn’t concern me that much so!”

Once everyone completed their story, we invited them to share what they have written and how do they actually feel when they hear this word ‘sex’ There was obvious hesitation in coming forward and talking about it.

Before we could say anything, the girl who refused to write anything around sex said, “It’s a normal word, nowadays it can be heard anywhere, it is talked about very casually. I don’t think there has to be any shame around it. I feel pretty normal hearing the word. Once my friend talked about how her boyfriend wants to have sex. I was taken aback, oh it doesn’t happen like this! Is this some joke. It’s not necessary if he has asked her you have do it. Its fine if sex is normal, people are talking about it. Why should I feel ashamed if my friends openly talk about it, what is the shame in hearing or talking about it”

There was an edge while she shared her thoughts while initially refusing even to acknowledge that it has some importance to it. This could imply many things – one thing that is obvious is that even though she said it’s normal so many times, maybe she isn’t comfortable about it or it scares her. It seemed more like deflection then being okay with it.

Another participant shared that she doesn’t really feel that this conversation or saying the word is normal, it makes her uncomfortable. There is always this thought in her mind, what if someone says it – what will she do, what if someone sees her even listening to the word while in conversations, what will people think about her. With trembling voice, she says that hearing this word, talking about it feels her with shame automatically even if she doesn’t want to.

One of the boys shares, “I don’t feel normal while hearing this word. It makes me uncomfortable and awkward”

However this conversation took a very interesting turn when one of the girls shared, “Initially when I was not aware about sex, it was this BIG BAD word for me. I used to be scared as to oh my god why are you saying this word. I used to feel ashamed on my own even if I had nothing to do with it. I didn’t understand what it means or what is it actually but it was like I am pretty sure that this is very bad word, we shouldn’t never talk about it and not utter anything like that in front of others. But when I came to know about it, I realized that it’s very important aspect of life, generations of human kind develop because of it. Though I know only few things but I am now sure it’s not a bad word”

Yet another participant pointed out that she used to feel really ashamed of the word sex, but now she is okay with it however she still doesn’t feel comfortable talking about it around her family and relatives.

After gathering their understanding around sex, we engaged on ‘how babies are born’ through a movie followed by engaging on what is sex, who can do sex, what it means to have sex and what are the ways to show love, affection and attraction.

We then engaged on condoms, contraceptive methods and sexually transmitted diseases through a video, play cards and discussion. It was interesting to watch them laugh, ask questions and being comfortable around the most tabooed topic of sex and condoms where even adults educated or not just shy away from the conversations as if it will make them unholy.

“I felt so good seeing the movie. It was hilarious, I loved how his father explained sex to the son so clearly. How I wish this happens in real life too”

What we have observed around the conversations on sex or sexuality is that people easily skip or just forget to have a discourse on consent! Our context, society, parents or education tell us what it means to say Yes or NO! Is it okay to say No? Will my No be heard?  And interestingly saying Yes and No is so gendered – like girls are always taught to say yes to things that are asked of them, how many times we see or believe that she can say NO to a situation or things she doesn’t want to do, while boys are never taught to hear No, they are provided with everything so even if someone says No, they just don’t hear it. Take the examples of the high profile cases of sexual harassment being talked in courts where the offender is let go because he didn’t hear the No or victim didn’t say clear No. So we took this opportunity to engage on consent by sharing the story of a girl who is kissed by her friend.

“Radha would slap him tightly”

“If she liked him, then she will also get involved. I mean she will kiss back because she is also attracted to him”

“She would scold him because till now they haven’t confessed their attraction and he didn’t ask her”

“She would rush away from him because she didn’t know what to do with it”

Post this session, we got numerous feedback –

“I learnt so many new things from this workshop – you talked about sex in such a normal way that I didn’t feel shame. I liked the theme and discussion around the story of Radha”

“I learnt that it’s important to speak about private parts. I can ask questions around private parts and sex and not feel ashamed about it”