Understanding the Scope of Sexual Abuse of Boys in India

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Let me preface this by saying that this post is in no way meant to minimize the suffering and abuse faced by girls and women. My aim is to illuminate the pervasiveness of child sexual abuse and the invisibility of male victims of this crime in India.

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According to a national study on child abuse conducted by the Ministry of Women and Child Development in India with the support of UNICEF, Save the Children and Prayas, it was discovered that child sexual abuse is a widespread problem affecting both boys and girls in the country. The study found that boys also face significant sexual abuse, as more than half of the respondents who reported abuse were boys:

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A questionnaire was administered to 12,447 children belonging to the five different categories of children in family environment, children in schools, children in institutions, children at work and street children in 13 different states. The major findings of this survey were:

• Out of the total child respondents, 53.22% reported having faced one or more forms of sexual abuse. Among them 52.94% were boys and 47.06% girls.

• The age wise distribution of children reporting sexual abuse in one or more forms showed that though the abuse started at the age of 5 years, it gained momentum 10 years onward, peaking at 12 to 15 years and then starting to decline. This means that children in the teenage years are most vulnerable.

• The significant finding was that contrary to the general perception, the overall percentage of boys was much higher than that of girls.

• In fact 9 out of 13 States reported higher percentage of sexual abuse among boys as compared to girls, with states like Delhi reporting a figure of 65.64%.

• Out of the total child respondents, 20.90% were subjected to severe forms of sexual abuse. Out of these 57.30% were boys and 42.70% were girls.

• 76% children were subjected to other forms of sexual abuse. Out of these 53.07% were boys and 46.93% were girls.

• Assam reported the highest incidence of sexual abuse among both boys and girls. 62.55% boys and 51.19% girls from Assam reported facing one or more forms of sexual abuse, which was highest amongst all the 13 sample states. This was followed by Delhi with 54.66% boys and 22.54% girls and Bihar with 35.89% boys and 30.40% girls reporting high incidence of sexual abuse. The Goa figures of 2.55% boys and 2.17% girls do not seem to be in line with the general perception.

• Across the country, every second child was being subjected to other forms of sexual abuse and every fifth child was facing severe forms of sexual abuse.

• Children on streets, children at work and children in institutional care reported the highest incidents of sexual abuse.

• 77% children did not report the matter to anyone.

• 50% abuses are persons known to the child or in a position of trust and responsibility.

(https://www.legalserviceindia.com/legal/article-4985-child-sexual-abuse-in-india.html)

Of the young adult sample, 60.58% of males reported being subjected to one or more forms of sexual abuse during childhood, compared with 41.12% of the females.

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Boys are vulnerable to victimization by both male and female perpetrators, and they usually don't understand that they were sexually abused:

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Other interesting findings included that in India, some of the boys in the sample study were abused by women too, which was not found in other participating countries. The India report went further with the narrative of physical strength to include independence and knowledge about how to have sex. Or only in India did some of the respondents state the expectation for men to know about 'how to have sex'. What was suggested in all the reports was that boys do not appear to understand that boys can be sexually abused. They could give examples of sexual abuse, but the focus always appeared to be the abuse of girls. That is, many of the male respondents did not know what they had experienced was abuse, and often what is legally defined as abuse was described by a boy as experimentation or even as transactional.

(https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2022/04/13/decade-after-pocso-campaign-aims-to-highlight-male-sexual-abuse.html)

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Furthermore, there's a harmful stigma associated with male child victims of sexual abuse. While cases of sexual abuse faced by girls is vastly underreported in India, the NCRB data reveals that cases involving boys are substantially more underreported, despite the enactment of gender-neutral child sexual abuse laws:

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“Crime in India” 2019 report by The National Crime Record Bureau revealed that registration of cases under the POCSO Act has increased by 18.9 per cent. While, of the 26,192 cases filed under POCSO Act that has rape charges, 25,934 were girls, and only 258 were boys. Even after the implementation of POCSO (gender-neutral law), it can be seen that there is a very low rate of reporting and help-seeking among victims of sexually abused boys in India.

(https://childsafetyatwork.com/minor-boys-sexual-abuse-an-ignored-reality-in-india/)

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The phenomenon of male sexual abuse isn't just confined to the domain of children, either. Delhi-based Centre for Civil Society found that approximately 18% of Indian adult men surveyed reported being coerced or forced to engage in conjugal relations. Of those, 16% claimed a female perpetrator and 2% claimed a male perpetrator.

Source: A Case for Gender-Neutral Rape Laws in India

While we can't say much about the accuracy and conclusions of such surveys, we don't have any official data regarding adult male victims of sexual crimes in India to work with, on account of the failure of our rape and sexual assault laws to recognize them. Due to a multitude of reasons, there's a serious scarcity of information about this topic which makes it all the more difficult to advocate for gender-neutral policies and laws in this country.

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I feel strongly about this subject as, being a male, I've been a target of sexual misconduct myself, and I've come across many other men who have reported similar experiences. I hope more men feel comfortable with sharing their stories so that the distorted narrative of sexual abuse can finally be challenged.