Prevention of Child Abuse
Imagine being told constantly "you are useless, can do nothing properly", "a burden on family, society and earth", That "you are unwanted " ...all such phrases and utterances by the family member or parent is tantamount to mental violence, to this the family adds constant beating every morning, noon and night. This gives you a glimpse of what happens with the victims of child abuse. What happens in those soft innocent minds, nobody can tell for sure.
Children being the young, learning and absorbing minds they are, take these blows in magnified proportions . Childhood or rather the quality of childhood shapes a person. Good, loving, healthy childhood, with parents living a good exemplary life and imparting good values to their children makes good future citizens for the nation. On the other hand an abused childhood can give rise to various problems like, but not limited to depressed youngsters, petty and big criminals, abused childhood in turn making them abusive parent and spouse, increased rates of suicides, use of alcohol, drugs and other addictive substances leading to various other social and health problems, drop-outs and runaway cases falling prey to child labour, begging and even prostitution.
And all this is just the tip of ice-berg; nobody can ascertain the exact extent of problems arising in society due to child abuse. Child abuse is a problem that gives rise to numerous other problems of society, which the psychologists take very serious note of.
An abusive childhood affects an individual on various levels and can leave one crippled in many ways, all of which are not even known. India being a fast developing nation with a population only second to China is facing its own set of social problems while it bask in the glory of its success on one part. Child abuse continues to be a national problem but there are disproportionately high cases in areas like Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. The problem is reaching alarming proportions due to the increasing gap between rural India and Urban India.
There are far too many low income families with too many mouths to feed, increasing corruption and the phenomenon of hoarding. All this is increasing the levels of frustration making the poor populace angry and many times leading the senior responsible members of the family ending their frustration on the family and children.
People in the rural sector are becoming impatient and such impatience is adding fuel to the fire.
Child Abuse can have multiple negative effects on children like self-devaluation, dependency, mistrust, fear of re-victimization, withdrawal from people, emotional trauma, deviant behaviour and interpersonal problems
However, the silver lining is that children forget the bad past if there is a healing touch provided in time and they are encouraged to move on in life.
UMMEED EK ASHA works on grass root level, working towards eradication of this humongous, ugly problem instead of getting any quick fixes. We work with parents, trying to make them understand that beating can have too deep and ugly effect on the soft minds of children. We work with children to get them out of ugly situations.
Education too plays its part in it. It is a very big task and we have made our beginning. We need you to strengthen us and support us to continue our fight against this menace of child abuse. We welcome volunteers and donations. Please check out our contact and details page to know more.
