[Yet mostcases go unreported. A 2007 government-sponsored study, based on
interviews with 12,500 children in 13 Indian states, said that 53 percent of
the children reported having been sexually abused in some way, but only 3
percent of the cases were reported to the police.]
By Sruthi Gottipati
The group urged the government to better shield children
from sexual abuse as part of a broad push for change after the death of a young
woman who was gang-raped here
in December. Although there are child protection laws on the books, including
one passed last year, the rights organization said the measures were not
properly enforced.
“Children are sexually abused by relatives at home, by
people in their neighborhoods, at school and in residential facilities for
orphans and other at-risk children,” said the 82-page report, titled “Breaking
the Silence: Child Sexual Abuse in India.”
Yet most cases go unreported. A 2007 government-sponsored study, based on
interviews with 12,500 children in 13 Indian states, said that 53 percent of
the children reported having been sexually abused in some way, but only 3
percent of the cases were reported to the police.
“Children who bravely complain of sexual abuse are often
dismissed or ignored by the police, medical staff and other authorities,”
Meenakshi Ganguly, the director of Human Rights Watch in South Asia, said in a
statement.
In response, the government acknowledged flaws in its child
protection system, with the head of one government agency saying at a news
briefing that in many cases the police or court officials did not accept that
rape or incest had occurred.
“People have to be made aware of their rights, the
procedures to be followed in registering a case in a police station, and insist
that they get justice,” said Shantha Sinha, the chairwoman of the agency, the
National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, The Associated Press
reported.
In interviews with more than 100 people, Human Rights Watch
found that the police, government officials and doctors were unprepared to deal
with child sexual abuse cases and often made the situation worse by not
believing the children’s accounts and subjecting them to humiliating medical
examinations.
The rights group reported that in four cases, doctors used
an unscientific “finger test” to examine girls who had been raped.
“The process is so traumatic that in some cases the
children are better off not reporting” abuse, Ms. Ganguly said in an interview.
Sexual abuse of children happens everywhere, Ms. Ganguly
said, but in India the official response to it seriously compounds the problem.
In one episode, a 12-year-old girl who reported to the police that she had been
raped by a man from a politically connected family was locked in jail for
almost two weeks, the report found. The police insisted that she change her
story, it said.
Activists called for more comprehensive reforms, arguing
that the laws and the support system for children should be better integrated.
“It has to be holistic,” Hasina Kharbhih, a child rights
activist, said in an interview.
Child sexual abuse, she said, “has devastating aftereffects
which haunt the victims as they grow into adulthood.” She added that the
enormity of such crimes was often not acknowledged in India.
One particular focus of the report is the sexual abuse of orphans
and other at-risk children at residential care facilities. The rights group
said that facilities in most parts of the country were not inspected often
enough, and that many privately run ones were not even registered.
“As a result, the government has neither a record of all
the orphanages and other institutions operating in the country nor a list of
the children they are housing,” the report said. “Abuse occurs even in
supposedly well-run and respected institutions because of poor monitoring.”
India has signed the Convention on the
Rights of the Child, an international treaty that protects children.
The rights group noted that doing so obliged all levels of government to not
only take steps to protect children against sexual abuse but to also offer a
remedy when protections are violated.
BATTLING SELF-IMMOLATIONS, CHINA MAKES MORE ARRESTS
[Like other official Chinese reports on the self-immolations, Xinhua presented them as the outcome of a conspiracy inspired by the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, and groups outside China seeking to challenge the Communist Party’s hold over Tibetan regions in the country. The Dalai Lama has not made any explicit statements in support of the acts, and his supporters have dismissed the accusations as groundless attempts to divert attention from the failings of Chinese rule.]
By Chris Buckley
The announcement of the crackdown in Qinghai Province in
western China comes
as the number
of self-immolations reported
in Tibetan parts of the country over the past four years approached 100, a
somber milestone that has appeared to spur efforts by the Chinese police and
officials to crack down on people and groups seeking greater freedom for
Tibetans.
China’s state-run Xinhua news agency said that since
November, the police in Huangnan, a heavily Tibetan prefecture of Qinghai, have
formally arrested 12 suspects and detained 58 other people over
self-immolations in the area.
One of those arrested, whose Tibetan name is rendered as
Puhua in the Chinese-language report, was charged with homicide and accused of
giving speeches encouraging self-immolations at funerals for people who died by
engulfing themselves in fire, the news agency report said. It did not give
details about the other suspects, when they were held by the police or the
accusations against them.
Like other official Chinese reports on the
self-immolations, Xinhua presented them as the outcome of a conspiracy inspired
by the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, and groups outside
China seeking to challenge the Communist Party’s hold over Tibetan regions in
the country. The Dalai Lama has not made any explicit statements in support of
the acts, and his supporters have dismissed the accusations as groundless
attempts to divert attention from the failings of Chinese rule.
The Xinhua report said the self-immolations were “incited
by the Dalai’s clique abroad and then implemented within the country, with
photos and other personal information about the self-immolators then sent
abroad to stir up attention.”
The self-immolations began in February 2009 as protests
against Chinese policies that many Tibetans see as a threat to their
traditional homeland and Buddhist beliefs. Reports and pictures of the protests
and other acts of defiance against Chinese authorities have been spirited out
of the areas to advocacy groups abroad. At least 81 Tibetans died after their protests, according to the
International Campaign for Tibet, a group based in London that advocates
self-rule for Tibet.
The Voice of America broadcast service on Wednesday denied accusations made by a Chinese television program
and newspaper that Voice of America encouraged Tibetan self-immolations. Many
self-immolations have occurred in traditionally Tibetan areas of provinces next
to the Tibetan Autonomous Region, the administrative area that China
established in 1951. Qinghai Province is among those areas, as are parts of
Sichuan and Gansu Provinces.
Chinese courts rarely find in favor of suspects in crime
cases, and the latest reported arrests and detentions are likely to end in at
least some trials and convictions. A court in Sichuan Province imposed
heavy sentences on
Jan. 31 on two Tibetans after declaring them guilty of urging eight people to
burn themselves. Three of those people died.
Despite the Chinese government’s crackdown, there have
already been three self-immolations by Tibetans this year. The second one died.
The Dalai Lama fled his homeland in 1959 after a failed uprising
against Chinese Communist forces that entered Lhasa, his seat of power, in
1951. Many Tibetans revere the Dalai Lama, who is 77, and observers have said
that when he dies, contention could intensify between the Chinese government
and his supporters about designating his successor.
