Who will watch those, who watch the watchmen

With safety of children from sexual predators in schools once again in focus, maybe it is time to be more proactive and less reactive

TRIGGER WARNING: CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE

PICTURE CREDIT: PIXABAY

Earlier this month, a school bus attendant was arrested for allegedly molesting eight girl students during a school excursion, while top officials of the Thane based school were sacked because the horrific incident occurred on their watch.

Reading the news took me all the way back to 2013, when a similar incident occurred with a girl studying at a school in the western suburbs. Then I realised that this case only came to me immediately because it was the first that the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act had been invoked, days after it was passed, in a child molestation case. But cases of students, particularly girls but also boys in many cases, being preyed upon by school staff were hardly new. I remember covering similar cases even before then, during my first job at The Asian Age from 2008 to 2012.

Reading the news reports of the Thane incident in 2024 led to a very natural and logical train of thought: how has nothing changed?

When the case from my Asian Age stint occurred, I remember the school management saying they were overhauling their entire mechanism of hiring, with stricter background checks on all staff, better coordination with the police etc etc. As subsequent cases were reported, we heard about how the management should be held responsible, how there needs to be stricter action and how an independent body is needed to oversee this. The last such case I’d covered - I was with the Free Press Journal in 2022 - the then Police Commissioner Sanjay Pandey had, in a YouTube Live session, said that a citywide security audit of schools was being undertaken.

And this is only in Mumbai. There are cases reported from all over the county on a regular basis. I am not going into figures and statistics because firstly that is not the point here and secondly, statistics are only indicative of the number of cases reported to the authorities, after the victims and their families overcome the shame and trauma, and steel themselves for the victim-blaming.

But as someone who has seen this happen repeatedly over 15 years - not even as a journalist but as a citizen - doesn’t it behoove the question: where are we failing?

If, as the stakeholders claim, there have been security audits, stricter background checks, changes in the hiring process and so on and so forth, does it not concern us as citizens that our children, our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, and nieces and nephews are not safe in their own schools?

I remember a case - not from a school - narrated during a conference by a child psychologist who works with victims of sexual abuse. This girl’s parents would put her in the lift and she would come out of it and get inside her car to be dropped to school every day. But within those few minutes from her floor to the ground floor, the lift attendant would molest her every day for weeks on end. And she was unable to voice her trauma because she did not even know what was happening with her. I’m citing this incident solely to highlight how vulnerable children are. This much is abundantly clear.

The other aspect that is free of doubt is the law. We have laws like the POCSO, we have special fast-track courts in POCSO cases, the strictest of action is taken against policemen found to be shirking their duties when it comes to registering or investigating child sexual abuse cases and there are laws and guidelines in place to prevent the news media from identifying the victims, directly or indirectly. So the laws, and their enforcement, too are not lacking. At least not theoretically and to a large extent, not practically either.

What remains is the human element. There will, as they say, always be predators. But then, there will, or should, always be guardians as well. Stanley Tucci’s character in Spotlight says, “If it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes a village to abuse one.” Spotlight is a film that chronicles the Boston Globe’s investigation into widespread child sexual abuse. But have we become so accepting of the fact that it takes a child to abuse a child, that we have forgotten that it takes a child to raise one? With children having little or no control over their vulnerability, doesn’t the responsibility automatically fall on the rest of us?

Which brings us to the core question. Why do we not see more civilians asking more questions? Or why are these questions not being asked enough? If one school announces stricter background checks of their employees, do the parents follow up with the school? Do parents of children in other schools ask the management if similar measures are being taken?

If the police announce a citywide audit of schools with regard to safety of children from sexual abuse, does anyone - parents, journalists, activists, watchdog organisations - follow up on whether these audits are actually conducted?

There is no scope to conduct ‘sting operations’ here, no scope to ‘expose’ a likely predator unless actually caught in the act or exposed by a courageous child. In which case, isn’t asking the right questions, and to keep asking them, the only way to go here?

And if yes, are we asking enough?