Stranger danger

Mona

It’s a shame. More than that. How can a 38-year-old married man, Sunil Rastogi, father of five kids, three of them girls, go around sexually assaulting hundreds of girls without being caught? Child sexual abuse is a stark reality in India; where are the laws? How can Rastogi, a serial offender, go on for 12 long years without anyone bringing him to book? While the women activists are demanding his hanging and till the law takes its course, we must protect our children. Chandigarh folks share their take..

Talk it out

Mum to a six-year-old, Gurjeet Kaur is well aware of the dangers lurking around the corner. Her approach to safeguard her kid is to keep conversing. “I have built the kind of rapport with my girl that she shares all her day’s activities with me,” says this assistant professor from Chitkara University. Though the little girl is unaware of what abuse or molestation is, she is aware that anything off the mark must be brought to her mum’s notice.

Harsha Thakur, homemaker and mother to two girls, admits that it becomes quite difficult for her to keep them ready for every situation that they face. She defines the rules regarding how to deal with strangers. “I have inculcated in their systems that they must not entertain people they don’t know,” she shares.

Teach well

If parents find it tough, it’s even more difficult for teachers, who tend the children for most part of the day. “It is really not easy for teachers to look after all the students individually. But we try our best to keep children updated about whatever goes around. We teach them not to talk or accept anything from people they don’t recognise,” says Sushma, government primary school teacher, Nada.

Explain the rules

Kids’ protection is the responsibility of all of us as a society. Government has laws put in place, but implementation falls on the shoulders of parents, teachers and elders around. The first step is to talk to kids. If you start early, you are stopping the danger in its tracks. Small kids respond well. Tell them a story, explain the rules – private parts are private; no one touches; not even mamma, papa; sometimes elders can be wrong and you can remind them of the rules. CBSE has issued guidelines about no hugging and no kissing on school premises; it’s how well we implement it.

Puneeta Singh, Chandigarh-based counsellor

Be wary

From KG onwards, we spend one to two weeks on the theme ‘stranger danger’ and talk about ‘good touch and bad touch’. In India, we don’t have strict rules to track and stop the molesters. Unless it is a rape (many times even in such cases) the assaulters are roaming free. Why don’t we have molesters profile pictures put online? That would sufficiently warn the society and work as a deterrent for offenders. 

Anupam Grewal, director-principal, Kids R Kids

(Inputs by Kriti Thakur)