When Child Protection Institutions Become Hubs Of Violence And Sexual Exploitation

THEME 3: DISPROPORTIONATE TARGETING OF YOUNG GIRLS

CASE STUDY: WHEN CHILD PROTECTION INSTITUTIONS BECOME HUBS OF VIOLENCE AND SEXUAL EXPLOITATION

Aanya (name changed)
State: Telangana
Date: August 2020
Age of the victim: 14

Aanya had lost her parents at a young age, and since then, stayed in an orphanage.  Her ordeal began soon after. A donor for the orphanage, the prime accused, would visit often and sexually abuse her. He would lace her juice with sedatives and repeatedly rape her for years. The warden, along with her brother, was running the orphanage and regularly pushed defenseless dalit orphan girls into the hands of dominant caste sexual predators like the accused.

After years of sexual abuse at the orphanage, during the lockdown, Aanya went back to her uncle’s house in Hyderabad. She was in a disturbed silence all the while and was walking with difficulty and pain. Her relatives soon noticed her unusual quietness and her physical discomfort. So, they took her to a local hospital. This is when the horror that she had endured came out in the open.

The doctor confirmed that the girl had been raped repeatedly and was mentally devastated. But this was not the end of her ordeal. Even after her family approached the police station and an FIR was lodged, subsequent action was not swift. The victim was examined at the Bharosa centre for women’s distress in Hyderabad, where she gave her statement. Shockingly, what she revealed exposed what could be called an organised sex racket run in the guise of an orphanage.

She said after the accused would sexually abuse her, the other children would help her get dressed and they would see him paying money to the warden. She even revealed that there were other girls who faced the same plight and were raped mercilessly. Despite the seriousness of the case, the Bharosa centre did not take any further action and asked the relatives to take the child back home. Neither did the police swing into action.

Desperate for help, the uncle’s family approached the District Child Welfare Commission. Aanya was handed over to the commission, in the hope that she would get medical help and other girls in the orphanage would be rescued. The other children were both witnesses in this case and victims themselves. However, the staff and chairperson of the CWC did not get the child admitted to a hospital and instead took her to an Observation Home.

This proved to be a fatal lapse. She did not get the medical help she needed for internal injuries that she had suffered. Soon after, the girl collapsed owing to haemorrhage from her internal wounds. Her rapidly deteriorating health was the result of sheer callousness by the district CWC and all other authorities. Aanya was finally rushed to the hospital where she breathed her last.

As she struggled for her life, her case was also struggling from one police station to another. Finally, while the police arrested the accused, the warden and her brother, it was a case of justice delayed.

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