thinkingaloud
Hands off our children!
How safe are our children? The grue-
some details of the recently exposed
serial rapes and killings in Noida, in
northern India, are what nightmares
are made of.
No week passes by without a report
of abduction, molestation or murder
of children, from around the world.
Are ‘safe’ places just utopian
dreams?
Most expatriates compare Qatar
favourably against their own coun-
tries, in terms of safety for children
and women. But even here, it is not
totally safe. The proof is in the cases
filed and pending in court.
If it is inevitable that our children
grow up in an ‘unsafe’ world, where
they are potential preys, how do we
protect them?
Do we keep them under lock and
key, with little or no interaction
outside of immediate family, home-
school them, and keep them off the
internet, from the tentacles of online
predators?
Or do we teach them to protect
themselves, detect danger from a
distance, raise a cry and ask for help,
and as they grow older, to physically
defend themselves?
When paranoia and panic subsides,
most of us will go in for the second
option. But how do we do that?
Particularly in Qatar, where ‘neigh-
bourhoods’ as we know them don’t
exist, and hence civilian patrolling
and vigilance is restricted.
Is being paranoid (and safe) better
than being casual (and probably sor-
ry)? Like most parenting issues, there
doesn’t seem to be a right answer.
No ‘one size fits all’ solution.
What definitely needs to be done,
from day one, is to instil respect
for personal space and
privacy.
Even a toddler can
be made to under-
stand that hugs and
kisses need not be
doled out to all and
sundry.
That diaper changes are
done in private.
And as the child prepares
for nursery, he or she
needs to understand that
there are degrees in re-
lationships, and each
degree comes
with a level
of intimacy.
Those levels
are sacred,
and not to
be tampered
with.
When it
comes to
abuse, how-
ever, it cannot be condoned
in degrees. A smack or a
pinch or a fondle cannot be
dismissed off just because it
‘could have been worse’.
A violation is a violation.
If the perpetrator is capable
of one form of molestation, it
wouldn’t be long before he or
she steps it up to another form.
It is not enough to protect
our own, alone. If we are uncom-
fortable with something we wit-
ness, even if it doesn’t concern us
directly, but does concern a child,
then we must take it up.
By Vani Saraswathi
february 2007 80