Bag's Rants

50% of Indian children are abused.

After reading a title like that you must think that it is a total disgrace. Half of the children in India are abused. So off you go to read the article at Wanabehuman.

After reading the article it made me actually consider that it is surprising that the title did not read 100% of Indian children are abused.

'Emotional abuse, for example, a girl is constantly ill-treated for not being born a male, or any child pulled up for low performance at school. ' There must be very few that have performed at their parents expected performance whilst at school and never had a telling off from their parents.

'Physical abuse, for example, is force used against a child by teachers, parents and others.' Force as in you will do this or else..... such as go to school, go to your room, do the dishes.

'Economic abuse, for example, encompasses forced labour in both hazardous and non-hazardous places of work.' Such as it's your turn for the dishes.

So far I suspect that these three must already cover most of the population of the planet never mind India.

Then we have the real issue.
'Sexual abuse, for example, extends from fondling to rape.' Fair enough. At 30% that is shocking but it seems to be overshadowed by the other types of abuse in the report. Makes me actually wonder if the figures holdup or if they are not also based on the same sort of questions as the others. If not how does this compare to the UK? Is it cultural? Do Indians see children the same way we do? I remember instances where children were mutilated in some of the poorer areas to make them more efficient beggars.

Maybe sexual child abuse is worse than I thought but somehow without any evidence whatsoever I don't think so. Sure there are people around who get their jollies from kids but most people do not. Most people are like you and me and see this as abhorrent. Hell, I think I'm a pervert for looking at 20 year olds on the TV like Charlotte Church. Yummy.

Anyway. The article got me thinking.

I suspect sexual child abuse is much less than we think from the media. But as with all things making it illegal and with such heavy penalties attracts criminals able to make an easy profit. So much so that we are probably causing child abuse by creating an underground market for it. In addition how many nicked for child porn are actually involved in the creation of it or would in fact ever consider abusing a child. In the past many people seemed to download it as a search for younger and younger looking legal models and get caught in the sweeps because the child porn is stored there as well. It's probably now that only the hard core is left, plus of course our police who seem to find it on lots of computers they take away. Funny that.

So it seems that in reality we have no idea if sexual child abuse is the scourge on society that we are told it is. I suspect most surveys and reports are based on leading questions and hearsay. I also suspect that by making it sound popular and forbidden that many nut cases are drawn to it out of interest. In reality we could be creating these child porn collectors or whatever and creating a market for the real criminals who can make child porn cheaply and with a very high profit margin.

On the other hand we could all be perverts and maybe we should just legalise it. Being as it seems to be supported by many more people than support our current government.

I just don't know what to think but one thing is certain I'm not getting the full story to make a reasoned judgement.

posted by Bag @ 11:54 am