• there was early detection of their sexual abuse and quick intervention
• following this intervention, the proceedings were not protracted or recurrent
• they were from otherwise well-grounded and non-dysfunctional families
• the children are of above average intelligence

For the less resilient children it could be generally said:

• children are prone to maximum abuse from the ages of four to sixteen, specially between six and twelve
• longer duration is associated with greater impact even if it is non-contact abuse like exhibitionism and verbal sexual invitations
• the use of force or threat of force is associated with greater impact
• those children sexually abused by their parents, stepfathers, grandparents, brothers, sisters, immediate uncles and aunts and first cousins—meaning, closest family and in the ostensibly safe environs of home—are likely to be more affected; girls and boys sexually abused by their fathers and mothers are the most affected; boys sexually abused by their mothers are devastated
• those children who have suffered contact abuse like penetration with penis, finger, tongue or object have very high impact; excessive fondling leads to the child being badly affected
• disorders develop if emotional support—by friends and specially by parents or family—is denied to the child after disclosure even of non-contact abuse
• those who have ‘enjoyed’ it as children feel a very high degree of guilt for doing so, most so if they are young girls

This guilt for ‘enjoying’ it in an incorrect situation—even when the child cannot be held responsible in any way for the situation—can have long-standing consequences. Thirteen-year-old Katayun was the youngest among a large happy household filled with siblings in Jamshedpur. Her married sister and husband visited them from Canada one year, as they did every alternate year. Katayun’s sister’s husband commented on how ‘well’ she had grown and began watching her body movements as she blushed under his unrelenting scrutiny. He managed to romanticize his intentions and after kissing her moved quickly to molesting her young body. He would masturbate into Katayun’s soft, fair palms while digitally stimulating her clitoris into an orgasm.

Her sister and brother-in-law left for Canada, Katayun continued with her life. She went to college, went to work and fell in love with a man. Her family saw that he was not right at all for the soft-spoken, gentle Katayun. But she was adamant, they married, they have a son. The man is domineering and loud, Katayun chooses not to see it. He completely swamps her personality, she chooses not to recognize this either. Instead, she is—as she has always been throughout their relationship—servile. She also actively encourages her son to be exactly like her husband. Just as Katayun has geared her very existence about the nuances of her husband’s moods, her son has developed a state of frozen watchfulness. The son’s main purpose in life is to please his father, he jumps into every conversation his father has with visitors, his sentences are not appropriate for his age but his father beams with pride, ‘My only child you see, no other children to talk to so he learns from our conversations with our friends. That is why he is so mature.’ In turn, the son praises his father fully and his father encourages him to disparage Katayun’s friends to their face as he laughs loudly.