Child Abuse In Schools

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

When I read somewhere “schools are modern temples where life is moulded by knowledge – smiths for this- worldly salvation...” I wince. My ire rises. What salvation? Every other day I read in the papers and watch on television about a girl being raped. Girls between four and twelve are molested and raped by teachers, clerks, peons or game instructors. In some schools, Ryan for instance, boys of tender age are even killed by maladjusted boys with gay abandon. University teachers, research supervisors, principals shamelessly make these temples hell-holes of ignominy. Schools these days are the nightmares for parents. Restless mothers wait for the kids’ safe return. Bus, car, taxi or other transports are not safe. Even boys are not immune from monsters of depravity. This is not an urban exclusive. The rural schools too are defamed by the same perversions of human nature.

How could such things happen in India? A hoary culture boasting of five thousand years of unimpeded flow of rich humane values could not have sunk to these depths in just seventy years of Independence and territorial integrity? In the days of the great epics, we do not have evidence of co-education. In Drona’s classes or Vishwamitra’s ashrams, girls are not to be seen? Yes’ we get evidence of rape, kidnapping, and pre-marital or extra-marital sex but paedophilia is not reported. The heroic ages of Greece and Rome have not been infamous for such pervert kind of sex abuse. One may argue, since the schools in those times were in open spaces child sex was impossible. While I accept the spirit of this logic, I am tempted to pay tribute to the society where such unnatural things, perhaps, were not given moral approval. But in contemporary times despite spectacular improvements in the education system and vast changes in the infrastructural environment how could this psychic malady surface without any historical continuity?

Admittedly man is a predator, sexual overdrive is not unnatural in these times of opulence and opportunities. Exposure to sexciting scenes, especially pornographic literature or net pornography may lead a person to turn into a sex maniac; but why the school? A government or private school appoints, at least tries to appoint men and women of comparatively good character. A background check of the other employees is also done in the case of non-teaching employees. Qualified persons manage and administer the schools. Security guards and CCTV cameras watch or suppose to watch things, yet such abuses happen. Should we then say that such occurrences are few and far between and should be taken as individual aberrations? But the frequency and extent of such abuses are now alarming. Last week two female teachers sexually molested a seven-year-old girl as reported by a national daily. This prompts the question; are we so maniacal and our libido manifests so forcefully that all societal and civilizational norms are flouted without any moral compunction?

Punishing the offenders is one way of looking at these problems although that seems to be the Hobson’s choice in all modern states. However, the punishment is dependent on evidence, proof, courtroom pyrotechnics of high-priced lawyers and Tariq pe Tariq. But the survivor is psychologically ruined. The survivor feels vanquished; his/her being smarts to death with self-conscious, self-deprecation. No compensation or punishment to the offender could ever heal the unseen wound.

I am not foolish enough to preach moral education in the schools or moral counselling to the staff. Morals in the democratic society are self-chosen and restraints self-imposed. No coercive imposition of values can change a person’s instincts. The fear of punishment may be deterrent but the death penalty for rapist has not acted as one. I feel the cure lies elsewhere;  in the inherited family values and the knowledge base, we provide in our curriculum. We teach to prepare citizens who will be resources to the state. We never prepare students as beings, as individuals with a sense of human dignity. Modern curricula are abstract, in the sense that these train men and women to be technicians of algorithms, genes and database. The knowledge laboratories must now rethink and produce individuals who will use knowledge with a human face. Otherwise, the data-centric worldview will run its course and no one will complain of crimes.