M. Stern and L. Meyer have run a comprehensive survey for the National Centre on Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington, which points out that the non-availability of a sexually satisfying relationship with a consenting peer—meaning if a man does not get ‘good sex’ from his wife or girlfriend—is not a causal factor in Child Sexual Abuse. Most perpetrators try and sexually abuse children even while they are involved in adult relationships.

There are several studies which bring up the question of why mothers do not protect their children against Child Sexual Abuse in their own homes, even if they have not been sexually abused as children themselves. In the Indian context there is no such hard data available but, again, all the international observations reflected in the book fit the situation.

These factors, too, have been observed as being prevalent in the Indian situation. A mother who does not take immediate protective action for her child who is being sexually abused at home—by her husband, her father-in-law, her brother-in-law, her elder son, the male cousin—does not do so because she risks external judgements of her mothering, the inevitable breakdown of her family, the removal of herself or her child or her husband from the scene of the crime, retaliation by the accused and all the men and even the women around him, social stigma, continuous court appearances and loss of financial security.

All of the above coalesced in Ila Pandey of Karvi who is still on the run in and around Lucknow. Her daughters have been put in schools away from her so that her husband cannot get at them through her, their fees are being paid by an educational support group, Asha Trust, and other expenses are being met by the Lucknowies. Ila Pandey was often emotionally and physically beaten by her husband, she had breakdowns. This is now being sought to be proved as ‘madness’ in the courts by Jagdish Pandey and his brothers. Ila Pandey continues running, perhaps even she had not estimated how much she would have to when she confronted her husband with his relentless year-long sexual abuse of Gudiya, their daughter.

Ila Pandey is brave also because she has sought to overcome her own physical, financial and emotional inadequacies to protect her daughters from Child Sexual Abuse. Most mothers whose children are being sexually abused at home by their close male family members, specially fathers, simply look the other way. International researchers say that such women tend to be characterized as lacking in social skills and possessing a number of disturbed personality traits, even if they have not been sexually abused in their childhood.

Sahd in 1980, and Bennett also in 1980, found that such mothers had low self-esteem. Bennett added that these women had an ‘intropunitive’—introspective—style of anger.

Herman and Hershelman, as also Harrier in a separate study, said in 1981 that such mothers experienced psychosis—they felt mentally unbalanced.

In the same year Frederichson added anxiety and suspicion to the list, and Herman and Hershelman followed up with alcohol abuse as one of the reasons why mothers did not stand up to the sexual abuse of their children in their homes. Goodwin, also in 1981, pointed to the mothers who had suicidal tendencies.