Acknowledgments

This report was researched and written by Mark Dummett, a consultant for the Asia division at Human Rights Watch. Interviews were also conducted by Meenakshi Ganguly, Kriti Sharma, and Gayathri Sreedharan, who also translated many documents. This report was edited by Brad Adams, Asia division director, and Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director. James Ross, legal and policy director, and Joseph Saunders, deputy program director, provided legal and programmatic reviews. Bede Sheppard, Asia researcher for the children’s rights division and Aruna Kashyap, women’s rights division researcher, provided additional inputs.

We would like to thank the chairperson of the NCPCR, Shantha Sinha, and member, Vinod Tikoo, for their assistance. We would also like to thank the many nongovernmental organizations, activists, and lawyers working in the fields of child rights and sexual violence who shared their insights and analyses with us or otherwise provided assistance. In particular, Human Rights Watch would like to thank: Anuja Gupta and Ashwini Ailawadi of Recovery and Healing from Incest (RAHI); Lenin Raghuvanshi, Shruti Nagvanshi, and Shirin Shabana Khan of the People’s Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR); Bharti Ali and Enakshi Ganguly Thukral of HAQ: Centre for Child Rights; Dr. Shaibya Saldanha, Enfold Proactive Health Trust; Meena Jain, Bangalore Child Welfare Committee; Raj Mangal Prasad, South Delhi Child Welfare Committee; Anjali Gopalan, The Naz Foundation; Razia Ismail, India Alliance for Child Rights; Kajol Menon, J.B. Oli, and Komal Ganotra, Childline India Foundation; Gangadhara Reddy and Ranganathan Manohar of the South India Cell for Human Rights Education and Monitoring (SICHREM); Sheila Devaraj of the Association for Promoting Social Action (APSA); Joy Srinivasan of Makkala Jagriti; Dr.  Seema Bhaskaran, Bharti Sharma; Maharukh Adenwalla, Dr. Kishore Hindustani, Utsav Bains and Govind Sharan.

Above all, we would like to express our gratitude to the survivors of child sexual abuse and their relatives who agreed to discuss their painful experiences with us. They did so in the hope that this report might help prevent other children from suffering.