9 May 2018

Reuters: In India, boy victims of sex crimes don't get talked about

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government last month introduced the death penalty for rape of girls below 12 and increased the minimum punishment for those whose victims were under 16, after the rapes of an eight-year-old girl and a young woman in two states ruled by his party led to public protests. [...]

"I have interacted with adult male survivors and social workers who have cited police hostility, ridicule and even lack of trust when it comes to believing that a boy was sexually abused," she said. "The most common perception dished out to male survivors is that they may have enjoyed it."

The Mumbai police investigating the boy's rape, however, said officers are regularly trained on how to handle sexual abuse of children of both genders. The federal government is also running workshops for police that cover all children, said Stuti Kacker, head of the government's National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, which advises on child-related policies. [...]

A 2007 survey by the ministry of women and child development, which sampled 12,447 children in families, schools, at work and living on the street, found that more than half had faced sexual abuse, and 53 percent of victims were boys. For the capital Delhi, the figure was 60 percent. [...]

An unidentified father who was resistant to psychological care for his nine-year-old son after he had been raped, was quoted by the journal as saying: "He neither lost a hymen nor will get pregnant. He should behave like a man, not a sissy."

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