The Rape of Innocence

This blog post refers to the events that took place last week – the rape of a 6-year old in school.

Today, Snubnose came home talking about the little girl who was raped in school. Yes, she used the word rape. Yes, she is all of eight years old.

I first heard the news through my Whatsapp friends circle at almost the same time I was hurriedly scanning the paper. Rape! OMG, it’s Vibgyor school! That’s supposed to be a good school! What on earth happened!

My first thoughts were with that poor girl and her family and how they were getting through this terrible time.

Next, my mind switched to what other precautions I need to take to protect Snubnose from evil people like this. No more walking alone after taekwondo, teach her to be more suspicious of strangers, hover over her in the locker room after swim class, insist on CCTVs being installed in school, and so on and so forth. Jeez! I have never been a helicopter parent but terrible incidents like this make even the most laid-back parent paranoid .

I’ve always warned her not to talk to strangers but she’s a pretty friendly child and happily chats to neighbors, friends, relatives and I didn’t want to curb her natural chirpiness too much. So, I tried teaching her good touch, bad touch – explained in as much detail as I thought appropriate only to see her looking really blank. Sigh! I put it aside for when she is a bit older deciding to just make sure she is supervised adequately. She just wasn’t ready.

But now! There is no postponing this conversation.

While I was pondering over how to talk things over with her, she chatted with an older friend and came home to inform me that a little girl was raped by two gym teachers in school. You should have seen my face. Shock was writ all over it.

Snubnose then thought I didn’t know about it, and she went into details, details that didn’t even make it into the newspapers. Her friend studies at Vibgyor, so she got to know all the background goings-on too. Thankfully, Snubnose didn’t really get what actually happened, she understood rape as being beaten very badly. Now, I am in the unpleasant position of explaining that rape is a bit more than that.

So, here we go, I am having the sex/rape/bodily function conversation much earlier than I actually expected to. Wish me luck!

[title subtitle=”What We Can Do to Make it Better”][/title]

While I am fretting that my daughter’s innocence was lost in such a fashion, think of the poor child who actually got raped, by people she probably trusted! Please send your prayers and best wishes to that family, and I hope they get through this all right.

There have been these vague rumors doing the rounds that the school tried to hush up the affair. I don’t know if that’s true, I wouldn’t think so. Right now there’s so much hysteria around the incident that it’s a little hard to sift the truth from the stories.

What I do want to see is more accountability from schools in general about the safety of children. And as part of that, there is a change.org petition going on currently that I have signed on and am promoting actively on my Facebook.You can sign this petition too if you believe that schools should be doing more to ensure the safety of children.

There is also a protest march being organized in Bangalore. One got a bit out of hand with some damage to the school property, but there are also other peaceful marches going on. If you are in Bangalore, you can sync up with various whatsapp groups and concerned parents if you want to join in.