ALBERTINA ALMEIDA
Much is being said about the recent case of a young man from Cur chorem-Sanvordem accused of filming and circulating sexually explicit videos of minor girls, reportedly exploiting them over an extended period of time. It is telling that as a society, we rarely pay sustained attention to such violations until they ex plode with this level of magni tude. And every time such cases surface, people are found bay ing for the blood of the person accused. The anger is under standable. But if we stop there, we miss the deeper question: what has the State been doing, or failing to do, to prevent such abuse in the first place, long be fore the case reached such pro portions? Through the united efforts of Goa’s rights groups, and the leadership of an IAS officer posted in Goa then, Goa had put together a comprehensive wish list of state responsibilities in child abuse prevention, protec tion, prohibition and rehabil itation within the framework of a draft law. It was a striking example of bottom-up consul tative processes of law-making. However, after its enactment, the State showed little interest in actually fulfilling those obli gations. Bailancho Saad had to take the Government to Court just to get it to set up the mandated Children’s Court, and the State complied only because it had no legal escape route. At the time, there was a case, of a man posing like a saviour and carer of children, who in fact preyed on vulnerable minors, taking them in his de facto custody, on one occasion even with the help of a simple affidavit that actually had no legal value. He had been abusing children for years. Once one complaint sur faced, many more spilled out of the closet. Because the offenc es straddled the period before and after the Goa Children’s Act came into force, and because the Children’s Court had not yet been established, case was falling between the cracks of Sessions Court and the not-yet then-established Goa Children’s Court, the case got prolonged, fragmented, and procedurally contested. But shortly after that, the State promptly watered down several of its own responsibil ities, by amending the law, so that preventive duties shifted from obligation to discretion. A deliberate dilution of account ability. In the face of rising crimes against children and in creasing vulnerability, the pub lic has legitimate expectations from the State. Will the State look at itself in the mirror and acknowledge that a case of this magnitude (many cases actual ly) could have been prevented with timely action and proper implementation? If the young man was moving around in a flashy car, picking up minor girls — and differ ent girls at different times, taking them to hotels or lodg es, whatever happened to the systems built into the Goa Chil dren’s Act to detect precisely such situations? How did the circulation of nude images of children escape the automated detection systems of the social media platforms, for the pur pose of flagging them? What happened to the agency re sponsible for forwarding such material to the investigating authorities? What enables such perpe trators to carry on with such impunity? Is it the social or po litical location of their parents? Or are there supportive cartels that draw from such videos for commercial exploitation? Can school based programmes go beyond routine orientation or even sensitisation and actu ally address emerging social and technological risks, so that minors understand and resist these traps? This brings us to another un comfortable truth. Even when relatives or community mem bers sense something amiss, the system has failed to inspire confidence in redressal or maintenance of confidentiality. No action is taken against re ports which, even without nam ing victims clearly reveal their identities. Clearly, in the Cur chorem case, if all these things were happening under the nose of the police and nothing was done, why would parents of the children or community have any faith in the system? It is now that the community has taken stock and come forth to question and interrogate, be cause aiz teka, faleam mhaka. Today it is happening to their daughters, tomorrow, it may be mine. The glamorisation of privi lege, symbolised by flashy cars, is another factor. For those caught in the lower rungs of in equality, such displays becomes an escape route into fantasies of upward mobility -perhaps even through marriage to someone wealthy. But the laser focus must remain on the abus er who not only enjoys immuni ty but feels entitled to indulge in such acts. Attention needs to be on what has enabled such a person to become an abuser of this magnitude. At another level, prevention programmes in schools have become a mere tick the box ex ercise. You have to do them be cause they are mandated to be done under some provisions of law. This can mean that a large number of students are herded into a hall and made to listen to a lecture. This kind of approach is cosmetic and does not become real sensitization. Real sensitisation requires smaller groups, genuine inter action, and space for children to understand, question and internalise. Besides, repeatedly, it has been demanded that the Wom en and Child Department should be the nodal depart ment on matters concerning children, and on implementa tion of laws affecting children. Further, there have to be of ficers appointed specifically to implement and monitor the im plementation of wide ranging laws like the Goa Children’s Act, which has many a provision for prevention of child abuse. The law does not require waiting until explicit sexual videos of children are produced, for ac tion to begin. There are provi sions in the law for appointing various competent authorities, and special officers, to enter tain representations or peti tions regarding violations of children’s rights, including by hotels and lodges. The Goa Children’s Act also envisages a State Level Author ity to prepare disaggregated data on all children in Goa in terms of age, category, sex, etc., and to conduct necessary re search regarding child rights violations and concerns per taining to the safety of children from any harm. There is an entire chapter on girl children, and another on children in dif ficult circumstances. Would it not be appropriate for the State to prepare an action plan to implement the various provi sions? If only there is political will, much can be done to prevent and redress such problems. And this should never depend on whether the aggrieved com munity or the victims belong to the constituency of the Chief Minister or any other Minister. Child protection cannot be se lective, it must be systemic. (Albertina Almeida is a lawyer and human rights activist)
