The painful truth of a 15-year-old pregnant girl: Sexual abuse by 14 men, failure of the system
In a district hospital in Andhra Pradesh, a 15-year-old girl, who is eight months pregnant, is spending her days in a 150-bed ward among other pregnant women and newborns. Officials have called it dangerous to terminate the pregnancy at this stage and have also considered it unsafe to send her back to her village. The girl, who was sexually abused by 14 men for two years, belongs to a Scheduled Caste (Madiga) community and her village is dominated by upper castes.
The investigation, which began after the girl’s mother filed a police complaint in the first week of June, has exposed the very system that was created to protect such vulnerable girls. “Due to her young age, poverty and caste, she became an easy target for exploitation. Systems like school monitoring and community welfare checks failed completely,” said Superintendent of Police V. Ratna.
The teen’s horrific experience began when she was 13 and studying in Class 8. After her father’s death, her mother, who was single, moved to a village near the Karnataka border. According to the police, one of the accused found the teen and her classmate, who was also from the Scheduled Caste, alone after school and clicked their photographs. Threatening to leak these photographs on social media, the two men forced her to sexually abuse them through physical violence and fear and also made a video of it. These videos and photographs were used by others to further exploit the teen.
When the teen’s pregnancy was discovered, her mother approached the police. On June 9, the police arrested six of the accused and later detained 11 more. There are a total of 17 accused, of whom 14 allegedly sexually abused her for two years and three, including her minor classmate, did not inform the authorities. All have been arrested.
The accused include three minors and 11 men aged between 18 and 51. They have been booked under the Indian Penal Code, Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) and the Information Technology Act.
The police are also investigating why the teenager’s Class 10 teachers did not report her long absence. “In such a crucial academic year, her non-residentship should have been noticed,” said SP Ratna. Local welfare systems, such as Grama Mahila Sanrakshan Karyakarsh volunteers and Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA), also failed to take note of the family’s situation even though it was known that the mother was suffering from depression and financial hardships after her husband’s death.
Of the 17 accused, 14 are from the influential Boya community, while three, including the classmate, are from the Scheduled Caste. Officials say leaders of the Boya community tried to get the teenager married to her classmate to hush up the case.
For safety reasons, the teenager will be kept in the hospital till her delivery, scheduled after July 21. “Sending her back to the village is risky,” an official said. After the delivery, the teenager and her baby will be shifted to a government women’s shelter.
According to hospital sources, the teenager is anaemic and suffering from depression. She is being provided medical care and counselling. “As Dalits, she and her mother are vulnerable,” an official said, and stressed the need to ensure their safety during the investigation.
Courtesy : Rajan Chaudhary, Hindi News