Methodology

Child sexual abuse in India, though widespread, is difficult to document because it is shrouded in secrecy. Fear of social stigma, an unwillingness to implicate family members, and other factors discourage families from exposing abuse. Police misbehavior and a long judicial process are deterrents to seeking redress.

Human Rights Watch spoke with numerous experts and activists before embarking upon research for this project. We also met with government officials who agreed that there were failures in ensuring the protection of India’s children and said they were committed to initiating change. Because the success of India’s response to child sexual abuse depends largely on how India's state governments implement the central government's different child protection policies, this report focuses on four parts of the country with different records in tackling child sexual abuse.

Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, has a poor history of governance generally and its response to child abuse is no exception. We conducted interviews in Varanasi, Allahabad, and neighboring districts, in both rural and urban settings. We chose New Delhi partly because it is the home of the central government, the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights, and many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Also, its state government is relatively effective and activists say it has done more than most to strengthen child protection mechanisms such as child welfare committees and special juvenile police units. Haryana is one of India's wealthiest states, but there have been many allegations that officials have failed to protect children in residential care institutions in the state. We also conducted interviews in Karnataka state, in southern India, because its state commission for the protection of child rights is considered a model for other states. Interviews were also conducted in the cities of Chennai and Mumbai, and elsewhere by telephone or email.

Most interviews were conducted between April and June 2012. Human Rights Watch interviewed more than a hundred people including independent and government child protection experts and officials, police officers, doctors, social workers, and lawyers. We also spoke to eight victims of child sexual abuse and the relatives of another nine victims, who all agreed to freely discuss their experiences. One of these victims was male, seven were female. Of them, four were over 18 but spoke of their experiences while they were children. We largely met them through NGOs that were providing them with support and counseling and felt the individuals would not be harmed in an interview with us. Every effort was made during the interviews not to re-traumatize the victims. In each case, the victims and their relatives expressed a desire to tell their story to prevent the suffering of others who might be in similar situations. In interviews with children, a close relative of the child was always present.

Interviews were conducted either in English or in Hindi through an interpreter, who was either a member of the NGO supporting the research or working with Human Rights Watch itself. The interpreters were all women.

It was not possible to speak to some of the victims in the cases discussed in this report, most notably children in residential care facilities that were closed to outsiders due to ongoing court proceedings or investigations. We also did not want to risk further traumatizing children who had already given their accounts to the police, doctors, the courts, and sometimes journalists. In a number of cases therefore, Human Rights Watch pieced together what happened by conducting interviews with officials, lawyers, and NGO staff, backed up, where possible, with secondary material, including court documents, official enquiry reports, police statements, news articles, and videos.

In this report, the world “child” refers to anyone under the age of 18. The Convention on the Rights of the Child states, “For the purposes of the present Convention, a child means every human being below the age of eighteen years unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier.”[1] The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act of 2000 defines a child as “a person who has not completed eighteenth year of age,”[2] and a person is deemed to have reached “majority” on completion of 18 years under the Indian Majority Act of 1875.[3]

In accordance with Indian law, none of the victims of sexual abuse, nor their parents, have been identified in this report.