In most cases of the survey of this section of Indian society, the abuser was a part of the victim’s everyday life, in the form of a father, brother, male cousin, uncle, male family friend, male neighbour and servant. A majority of the respondents had multiple abusers, once again proof that women internalize the oppressive qualities of their oppressor; those victimized borrowing the worst qualities of their aggressors and using it on themselves. The abuse of the women took place when the respondents were children in Mumbaii (115), Delhi (72), Calcutta (28), Chennai (7), Patna and Nagpur (5), Bangalore and Srinagar (4), Pune, Goa, Allahabad, Jamshedpur, Ahmedabad and Dehradun (3), the others were sexually abused as children while residing from Cochin to Chandigarh. More than 50 per cent of these cases happened at home.

Other organizations in India working on child rights collate the figures at five out of every eight girls and three out of every eight boys. That is 62.5 per cent of girls and 37.5 per cent of boys, from the ages of a few months all the way up to sixteen years of age, are victims of Child Sexual Abuse in India.

The police unofficially peg Child Sexual Abuse in India at 40 per cent of girls and 25 per cent of boys under the age of sixteen, cutting across class and community lines. This does not include physical violence against a child, child rape and child prostitution which the police categorize differently.

Perhaps the answer lies, as always, somewhere in between. Child Sex Abuse in India would realistically stand at around 50 per cent of girls and 30 per cent of boys under sixteen years of age. However, this book will use the police’s figures as final: 40 per cent of girls and 25 per cent of boys below sixteen years of age are victims of Child Sexual Abuse in India.

Given the furtiveness of the perpetrator, the secrecy by society and the silence of those lambs, the sexually sacrificial children, it would be well-nigh impossible to run a confirmation on any kind of statistic. It would also be very difficult, even with the most sophisticated co-relates—without the presence of, say, an exhaustive nationwide survey on kids below sixteen—to indicate whether Child Sexual Abuse is on the increase. The one point that can definitely be made from international data and sociological experience is that Child Sexual Abuse does not increase exponentially if there is an intensive awareness on the subject and immediate intervention by concerned adults in potential situations. In societies outside India, where parents and schools have empowered children on how to avoid or deflect sexual abuse, there is even a small fall in cases.

However, it would be incorrect to say that any reporting on Child Sexual Abuse does not necessarily indicate an increase, and that it merely reflects the situation that more cases are coming forward to be reported. In the Indian context this would be as ludicrous as saying women are not raped any more than they used to be, it is just the reporting of their rape that has increased. Child Sexual Abuse is an Indian family’s deepest, and most jointly-held, secret. What is the likelihood of these secrets finding their way out of the family while the child is still in a position to be rescued from the abusers within it? And how is this family to be identified when social, economic and educational status are no barriers to Child Sexual Abuse; neither are caste or religious background? Thus almost all Child Sexual Abuse cases remain unreported in a country where only 25 per cent of the rapes on adult women reach a police station.