And the girl herself, how is she? She has short-term effects, she is displaying some of the beginnings of long-term effects of Child Sexual Abuse but she is recovering; how much she will recover will only be revealed as she grows. Think about this little girl being taken to court, down those dark yet clattering corridors, her face being covered by her counsellor Hemlata’s dupatta because she has to be carried past her daddy’s angrily hissing relatives cursing her under their breath. Think about this innocent heart being battered by a battery of her daddy’s lawyers in court. Think about her when the laws change, and when they do, please send up a thank-you prayer for her. She will be the reason why your child will be legally secure vis-à-vis Child Sexual Abuse.

And she will be the reason why all the other existing laws which can be applied to Child Sexual Abuse will be taken far more seriously in the future.

Asha Bajpai who researches and teaches law in Mumbaii points out that, broadly speaking, laws to deal with Child Sexual Abuse can be sourced from the following:

• The Constitution of India
• The Indian Penal Code (as spelt out above by Flavia Agnes)
• The Immoral Traffic Prevention Act
• The Juvenile Justice Act
• The Indian Post Office Act (child rights activist Sheela Barse used a part of this Act as well to nail Freddy Peats since his pornographic material was being sent, and accessed, through the country’s regular mail system)
• Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (also used by Sheela Barse in context of the flow of monies by Freddy Peats to manage his paedophilic, pornographic business)
• International Conventions

‘International conventions could also be considered by practising lawyers,’ suggests Asha Bajpai, ‘as there is a very clear Supreme Court of India ruling which says they can be invoked provided they do not violate any citizen’s fundamental rights as guaranteed by the country’s constitution.’

Several women must suffer, they must emotionally and physically bleed before their sisterhood can somewhat benefit. This appears to be what has happened in the case of the international conventions ruling. Remember Bhanwari Devi? In Rajasthan? She was a ‘saathin’, a grass-roots social worker; she protested against child marriages in her area, rampant as they are in Rajasthan. She was rewarded with a gang rape and the court refused to believe that she had been gang raped, proclaiming that ‘high-caste men’ are not likely to ‘touch-low caste women’.

From Bhanwari Devi’s gang rape came this realization: that this paid social worker had been subjected to the most hard spectrum of sexual harassment for doing her job, and while she did it. Before, she had been continually sexually harassed verbally while on her job, she had often complained, no one had paid attention. It is now called the Vishakha case and has sparked off a debate at the court, followed by intense discussion on an international convention which India has also signed—the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, or Cedaw—and many years have passed with more cases and more discussion in courts and among women’s rights groups and it has slowly but steadily built up opinion. These efforts are now understood as laws against sexual harassment at work; remember this, every working woman—and her husband and children—in every part of India where, and how, it all started, send up that small prayer of thanks for all these women—beginning with Bhanwari Devi. A miraculous mixture of silk and steel, they have suffered to provide us with legal weapons which make it possible for our women to stay sexually safe at work.