#CSAAM April 2011 - Hearing Survivors speak

I was 12 when a stranger came and grabbed me and tried to fondle me from behind at the New Delhi Railway Station. He did it twice or thrice till my cousin sister, elder to me by two years, kicked him and pushed him away.

I was 13 when a guy started making prank calls to our home phone. He'd hang up if anyone else picked up, but if I picked up, he'd ask me a question in Hindi. The same question every time. It carried on for several weeks till one day the father picked up the extension and gave him a blasting. Till today, I've never told anyone what exactly he would ask me.

I know that a large part of my outrage over rape and sexual abuse come from these two experiences. That when the guys in the next car pass comments, I get upset and aggressive because I know it can get worse, no matter what the mother may say about it being no big deal.

But do these incidents classify as child sexual abuse? I've never really thought of them as such. Not even abuse really. Harassment, probably. But not abuse. But then, I was lucky no? These were fleeting incidents in an otherwise very secure childhood, and my family took care of me. They may not have taken the impact these incidents had on me very seriously, but they took care of me.

One of the hardest things about being a Peer Educator with RAHI was hearing disclosures. As girls in our college became aware of our campaigns, some of them began to approach us to tell us their stories, stories they had never shared with anyone else. There were times we spent hours sitting outside the canteen, listening to a girl we had never spoken to before, a girl we never spoke to again after that. Just - listening. Some were convinced to go to Anuja for formal counselling, for others, just that one conversation was enough. So many others never came to speak at all.

When the second batch of Peer Educators was formed, RAHI helped some 8-10 girls from the two batches to form a group - a group of survivors. The rest of us, in the larger group, knew the group had been formed, knew they would meet more often, but we didn't know who all were part of the group. Some of the members were close friends, and had told me they were part of it, but the others chose to keep their counsel.

Even though I had stopped working with RAHI by this time, I continued to run the mailing group on Yahoo for the Peer Educators those days. One night, I got a frantic call from a fellow Peer Educator, asking if she could recall a mail sent to the group. When I checked my mail later, I realised why - she had sent a mail intended for the survivors' group, confirming the time of their next meeting, out to the larger group. Everyone would now know she was a survivor, and she was not ready to tell the world.

The group naturally discussed this incident in their next meeting, because over the next few days, 3-4 of them wrote to the larger group, saying that they too, were survivors. Some were surprises, some not so much. Many of them remained silent.

At the end of that year, the Peer Educators again organised a seminar to talk about child sexual abuse. This time, from the survivors' perspective. They had created a movie where the survivors spoke about their experiences, even the panellists of the seminar were survivors this time. I wasn't able to attend the seminar, but I saw the movie a year later, when I went to help Anuja with a workshop. And I heard the voices of my friends, friends I hadn't realised or even suspected were survivors, talking about some of their worst memories.

Over the past month, I've been reading posts by survivors, talking about what they went through, and how they dealt with it. And I am in awe of how strong and brave these men and women are. To be able to put out your worst memories, and your emotions, out there, so that people become aware of something they otherwise refuse to acknowledge even exists - it really is incredibly brave.

#CSAAM April 2011 - Being a RAHI Peer Educator

NB: This post is my contribution to the Child Sexual Abuse Awareness Month that is running across the Indian blogosphere all through April 2011.

Long-time followers of this blog would know that I have been associated with an organization called RAHI Foundation for several years now. Those of you who know me personally will also know how ironic this is, but never mind that.

I first heard of RAHI during my second year in college. They had come to conduct a workshop for my seniors, and I remember we felt distinctly left out. We then heard they were looking for Peer Educators, who would participate in a 3-day workshop in the upcoming October break, and then work with them as PEs.

I worked with RAHI as a Peer Educator for nearly a year, along with 30 other girls from various colleges in Delhi. We brainstormed together, came up with ways to raise awareness about child sexual abuse in our colleges, ran competitions, organized talks and workshops, started e-groups and discussion forums, distributed bookmarks and leaflets - everything that a bunch of 19- to 21-year olds could possibly think of.

The summer after our second year, RAHI asked 7-8 of us Peer Educators to work with them as Peer Leaders. For most of us, it was the first time we worked in an "office". We did paperwork, brainstormed some more, and helped design the training workshop for the second batch of Peer Educators. We managed the behind-the-scenes action of the workshop, us Peer Leaders, and watched from the sidelines as the new batch brainstormed and came up with their ways of spreading awareness about CSA.

I stopped working with RAHI soon after the new batch got cracking on things - the father was a little insistent that in my final year, at least, I pay some attention to my studies. But I've tried to keep in touch with RAHI over the years, and tried to work with them as and when, be it by going in to help with workshops or bombarding you folks with tweets and blog posts about raising money for them by running in the Great Delhi Run.

RAHI's done some brilliant work over the years. As the first organization in India that ever paid attention to the issue of child sexual abuse, they've pretty much done the groundwork in terms of research, offering counselling, and leading the way for creating awareness. I've seen Anuja and Ashwini keep at it, year after year, with the same passion and credibility that they had ever since I've known them. I've seen them give up on some pet projects due to the lack of funds, and seen them inspire numerous young women to do some good in their lives.

At the end of that first year of being a Peer Educator, we had organized a seminar on CSA and incest, titled Breaking the Silence. Family, friends, professors, and everyone else we knew were cajoled into coming. At the end of the seminar, we handed out balloons to everyone, and asked them to burst the balloons at the same time, symbolizing the breaking of silence. I remember embarrassing myself completely by gleefully jumping up and down like a maniac when that happened.

Because, that more than anything else, was the struggle we faced in our attempts to talk to people about child sexual abuse: the silence we would meet. The denial that this could be a problem. The comments along the lines of "tumhare ghar mein hota hoga yeh sab, humareghar mein nahi hota". The assumption, very often, that the only reason I could possibly want to work for a cause like this was because I had perhaps been a victim.

There were no victims among us Peer Educators. Survivors, yes. Several, in fact. Strong, amazing women who had been through experiences I can't begin to imagine, and survived. That distinction in nomenclatures is important.

Which is why I am so, so glad about this initiative that is running. And I know the folks at RAHI are delighted too. Because it's not enough to make sympathetic faces and retweet the one-off articles you come across about CSA and incest. Talk about it. Recognize that it exists. Tell people to stop brushing it under the carpet. Be aware. Make others aware.

It will help.

To be a woman, Part II

Three brilliantly written and interesting articles were pointed my way today:

• The Careless Language of Sexual Violence, which reacts to this utterly insensitive and ridiculous article that had "reported" the gang-rape on an eleven-year-old girl in Texas. My heart was breaking about the trauma that girl must have gone through, and all the NY Times could report was some idiot who said “These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives.”
• On Sluts, Rape and Fuckery, an absolute brilliant article by Shalene Gupta on the hardest part of rape - the silence (something I used to keep hearing when I worked with RAHI Foundation - the silence, the inability to talk about what has happened to you, is such a large part of the trauma) - and some words and their connotations, and what these words do to you. It's one of those articles that blow your mind away, literally. Read.
• And finally, a beautiful article by Annie Zaidi, where she talks about what being a woman in modern India meant a decade ago, and what it means today. And how the women in our lives make us the women we are.

Rape, domestic violence, child sexual abuse, sexual assault - I'm known to get on my soapbox about these fairly often. I can take most jokes, but jokes about these get very difficult to digest. And it is utterly infuriating when rape or sexual abuse is somehow made to be the victim's fault.

Nothing, nothing, justifies rape. And if you don't know that yet, you don't deserve to exist. And you should go read this to help you understand just who is to blame.

A round-up of news

If you're following me on twitter and/or posterous, you'll know I've been bombarding people with requests to sponsor my run against Child Sexual Abuse, to raise funds for RAHI Foundation, an NGO I've been associated for the past six-odd years. Details here, link to donate here. Please, do donate.

In other news, I was in Bombay last week. It was supposed to be a quick 24-hour round trip, but I had to stay back for an extra night because the workshop I was conducting ran late. My first experience at Delhi's brand-new Terminal 3 wasn't very nice, and Indian Airlines convinced me never to fly with them again, with their long delays and fixation with Akshay Kumar movies as part of the in-flight entertainment. I was constantly tweeting from the airport both in Delhi and in Bombay; plan to compile them into one post when I get a bit of breathing time.

The other news from the Bombay trip is that I conducted a workshop, all by myself, for the first time. Was strangely non-nervous about the whole thing, and by that, I don't mean I was confident about it either. Just strangely... detached about the whole thing. Went off quite well though, although I could've probably been firmer with the participants and not allowed them to stretch the day so long.

But the detachment worries me.

So anyWAY, donate okay? And pass the word around too. If a couch potato like me can sign up for a 7-km walk, the least you can do is donate.

Yes, I'm trying to guilt-trip you into it. Is it working?

Announcement of the day

I usually don't announce the additions of any widgets, but leave it to y'all to discover them. However, this time round I suppose I feel the need to do so.

I've added an Article list to the left, right below the Blogs I Read section (which needs a major overhaul!). I'm going to put links to any interesting articles I come across there instead of dedicating one-line entries to them. If I feel the need to add a commentary to any article, I may do so, but I don't see that happening too often, do you?

Of course, this probably means my frequency of posting is going to drop sharply, but you'll just have to swallow the lump forming in your throat and live with it.

Also, I don't think Bloglines or Google Reader will catch updates happening to the list (yes, I do get to know when you use these; yay Statcounter!), so you'll probably just have to check every time you visit.

To start off the list, I've put up two articles. One is fairly outdated, but talks about Ganguly, so you should read it. The second is about a cause very close to my heart, and a person very dear to me - Anuja Gupta of RAHI Foundation and her work against child sexual abuse and incest. Read it, please.

Also, to know more about RAHI Foundation, you could visit their site, or even the Wikipedia entry I created for them. (Yers, I know, I'm very kewl.)

I'm sorry... I didn't plan to!

It's a good thing I neither went into journalism, nor have any plans of doing so. I think journalism, or at least the kind of journalism I'm talking about, involves a certain amount of objectivity or detachment from the facts of whatever you might be reporting. I don't have that.

There is no doubt the possibility that I might develop such an attitude in the future, but as of now, I don't see that happening. These days, I tend to get a little too worked up about most things that I read about in the papers.

I read this article earlier this week, and all I could think was, "momentary lapse"?!? Bull. Even if it was, the girl was eight years old people!!! How can you forget the utter brutality of what she underwent simply because it wasn't planned?!? Oh, and the fact that the so-and-so didn't kill her, but simply left her to bleed to death really does let him off the hook, doesn't it? And of course it doesn't fall under the category of "rarest of rare" cases, because child sexual abuse is so bloody common in this country.

Someone I know is of the opinion that Santosh Singh was given the death penalty solely because of the public opinion surrounding the case. I'm beginning to believe he's right. Do we really need to create public outrage every single time we want to see justice? Is creating a brouhaha the only way we can get justice?

I was a much happier person before I started reading the newspapers.