Child Sexual Abuse: NO, GO, TELL

Surasma Lamichhane

Children require love, care and protection . Children are taken advantage of at times. Some Children have to Various forms of violence, such as physical, sexual, intellectual, emotional abuse etc.

Child sexual Abuse is any type of sexual activity with a child where consent is not or cannot be given. Depression, anxiety, and anger are the most commonly reported emotional responses to childhood sexual abuse. At least 120 million girls under the age of 20 have been forced to engage in sex or perform other sexual acts. Roughly 90 per cent of adolescent girls who report forced sex say that their first perpetrator was someone they knew, usually a boyfriend or a husband.

A child, being young and immature cannot consent to any form of sexual activity.
Child sexual abuse is a abuse that includes any type of sexual activity which with a minor. Child sexual abuse does not need to include physical contact between a perpetrator and a child. When a person engages with a child in a very uncomfortable way they are committing a crime.

I was aware about child sexual abuse since I was a little kid. My mom used to explain things to me and I’m very grateful to her for that. My mom also made me watch a movie named छायॅा directed by Manoj Pandit. The movie portrays a young guy who gets sexually abused by a rich man who acts kind around his parents and acts as his guardian so it’s very difficult for the little boy to know what is going on and he gets very traumatized by the whole situation. Therefore, after watching that movie, I learnt that both boys and girls can be the victims of child sexual abuse. The movie was an amazing piece of art. I gained a lot of knowledge from it.

Proper guidance should be given to children by the parents and they should also make their children feel safe to talk about how they feel and also give them information about different sexual topics. They should teach their children about terms such as safe and unsafe touch. Safe touch is a type of touch that makes you feel loved and comfortable. But on the other hand, unsafe touch makes you feel very uncomfortable, confused, nervous, ashamed and disgusted. Children should always let their parents know about how they feel if they ever feel uncomfortable by others because it’s never the child’s fault.

There is a concept which is made for children to use if they ever go through sexual assault or sexual abuse called ‘NO, GO, TELL’ where;
(1) NO implies on what you should say loudly (scream) when someone is touching your body and you feel uncomfortable and confused.
(2) GO implies on going to a place where you feel safe, for instance where there are a lot of people.
(3) TELL implies on telling what happened or how you felt when you were in that situation to someone you really trust like your parents, guardian, or your teacher or a school nurse.

There are legal actions taken against Child sexual abuse. According to The Act Relating to Children, it is stated in section 66 that, Offenses against the child: (1) If any person does any act of violence referred to in sub-section (2) or sexual abuse referred to in sub-section (3), he or she shall be deemed to have committed the offence against the child under this Act.

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