This state was once known for its crime-free society. People from other states preferred to settle down here. But the state has lost that reputation. In this tiny state, no one, including children, especially the girl child is safe. In a large number of instances, the molesters are people in her own home, including her father or other ‘close relatives’ like cousins or an uncle. In some cases, mothers take up the role of agents to ‘sell’ their daughters off into flesh trade, where the latter are sexually exploited by multiple sex-hungry ‘beasts’, who no longer qualify to be called ‘human beings.’ The mother earns money in the process. There has been an instance where a teenager was sexually abused by 100 men. These so-called ‘sex rackets’ are named after the places where they take place, like Vithura, Paravoor and Kothamangalam sex scandals. This alarming trend has caught the attention of the Social Welfare department which ‘proposes’ to put in place a system for giving adequate care and protection to children, who find themselves in crime-related distress. This sorry state of affairs where the girl child is no more safe in her own home needs to be tackled in right earnest. The glaring cause for these crimes being repeated at liberty in this state is lack of stringent and uncompromising deterrent. Those that exist now, if any, are too inadequate. The system, as that exists in some countries, where severe punishment such as severing off body parts of the assailants, will not be out of place as the crime in question demands it. If people are aware of a system in which they would be ruthlessly punished if caught in such beastly acts, they would to a large extent stay out of the crime. According to the police department figures, as many as 361 children became victims of crime in 2006. Of this, 102 were murdered, 159 raped, and 74 kidnapped or abducted. There were 20 cases of procurement of minor girls, two cases of infanticide and one case registered under Child Marriage Restraint Act.On the other side of the coin, there has been an increase in the number of children involved in serious crimes, in the same year. There were 534 cases pending in juvenile courts in Kerala. The break-up is rape and murder (730) drug peddling (1), of this, 701 are boys and the rest, girls. This is greatly due to unhappy childhood and lack of an atmosphere at home conducive to proper upbringing of children for various causes like alcoholism, watching pornography at home as family, quarrels and skirmishes among parents. The authorities, psychologists, sociologists and NGOs like shelter- homes and the citizens have their job cut out in this state that has lost its soul. (The writer is senior specialist, Lakeshore Hospital, Kochi)
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