ELAAN

As part of it’s committment to combat CSA from all directions (literally), we are organizing a special interactive session with the support group for members of the  “Swikriti”with whom we have a long-standing association.
All details are provided below and all are welcome to attend and provide input or just listen.

As usual, the folks at Elaan are grateful to all those who support the cause and help us.The Header Image you see on top has been designed by Arkoprovo Mukherjee, who is about to complete his Masters in Design (specializing in Visual Communication) from IIT - Mumbai. — Thanks Arko!

CLICK HERE to see more of Arko’s work with Photography online! — It rocks, you can safely take our word for it!

On Saturday March 22nd, we opened our office and resource center to the general public for the first time. Amongst those invited were students from Jadavpur University, Loreto College, St.Xaviers College and numerous city NGO’s; all of whom came together to show solidarity for the fledgling organization that has only recently established it’s name in the field of child right’s activism and Child Sexual Abuse awareness through performing arts, intervention, counseling and interactive discussion.

The interactive session was facilitated by members Mirna Guha and Nayantara Mazumdar, both students of Elaan’s in-house peer counseling course, who deftly tackled questions on sexuality, gender, communication barriers between parents and their children, “coming out”,homosexuality and other topics that are otherwise considered “taboo” and not “media-friendly”. It was interesting to note that not one media person chose to support the occasion despite it being a noteworthy one and indeed, a “one-of-a-kind”, given the most recent tragedy ; that being the death of Scarlett Keeling.

Among the solutions that resulted from the session were the ones that involved speaking with parents and heads of organizations about personal safety, involving young children in self-awareness and self-esteem and speaking to both parent and child as a “team” to ensure clear and consistent communication between both, so as to ensure less stress for both.

Elaan ended the session by mentioning it’s tele-counseing details, and also it’s website address (www.elaan.org) and all pronounced themselves as being grateful for the openness and informality provided by an open space and tea-time atmosphere.

The organizers are grateful to Mr.Barun Roy for his invaluable assistance with the LCD Projector, and for his chipping in voluntarily with last-minute help. Mr. and Mrs. Sinha are also to be thanked for their patience with open gates, spilt tea and other things. A special hug to Minoti di for the tea and Blue the dog for being the best mascot we could have!

Recent news stories about sexual abuse of children in Alexandria and elsewhere should do more than make us disgusted and angry.
It should make us act.

Consider something that happened in Duluth about a year ago: A 70-year-old man was arrested for sexually abusing a 7-year-old girl who was being cared for at a child care business run by the man and his wife.
When an investigator asked the man, “Why a child?” The man replied, “Because it’s easy.”

Sadly, statistics indicate just how “easy” it is: More than 39,000 sexual assaults are estimated to be committed each year in Minnesota — the majority against children. One in four girls and one in six boys will have been abused by the age of 18. Some estimates put the number of childhood sexual abuse survivors in America at 39 million.

But there are things a community and families can do to make it harder for individuals to sexually abuse children. Ted Thompson, executive director of the National Association to Prevent Sexual Abuse of Children, offered this advice in a Prevent Child Abuse Minnesota newsletter:

• We can make prevention of childhood sexual abuse a public policy priority. We can call legislators and prosecutors to express outrage at abuse. It would greatly enhance our ability to expose offenders if we would eliminate statutes of limitations, both criminal and civil, for the sexual abuse of children.

• We can educate our communities. People need to know that sexual abuse of children by someone known to the child is exceedingly more likely to happen than the more high-profile, but rarer, stranger-abduction and rape.

• We can come forward and address abuse we know about or suspect. It is likely in most cases that someone knows abuse is happening and needs to have the courage to come forward. Because sexual abuse is often perpetrated by people we know, this can be difficult.

• We can improve our ability to educate families and professionals to prevent as well as recognize, report and respond to abuse. We need to provide model curriculum to prepare professionals to recognize abuse; and understand that factors such as substance abuse, poverty and unemployment can significantly contribute to the risk of children being sexually abused.

• Parents can communicate with their children every day. We can teach children that sexual advances from anyone, including other family members, are not OK, and also teach them how to conduct themselves in sexually appropriate ways with others.

I will NOT let ignorance take priority over healing and justice.

There are three reports in total , of which we have one. The articles required are from The Telegraph and The Indian Express

http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/All-for-a-Cause/246569/

Elaan, in partership with SAATHII mehendi-tattooed and quized it’s way through WAD 2007 at Star Theatre this evening.

Participating NGO’s - SAATHII (they conceptualized the event and laid the foundation with Priya Entertainment), Elaan ( with CSA at the forefront of all activities ), Diksha (an organization that works with the children of sex workers) and SPARSH, an organization which works with positive patients (apologies if i am mistaken)

Venue - Star Theatre rooftop amidst visitors and a foodpark

Duration - 6:30 to 8:15pm

Elaan’s participation included - Overall documentation, The 20 question AIDS quiz with assistance from SPARSH and Mehendi tattoos for everyone ( keeps the AIDS ribbon on for longer).

Participants from Elaan : Pranaadhika, Mirna, Vijay, Madhurima, Mansi, Debolina, Abhinandan, Shreya, Bidisha and Chhandak ( who isn’t officially a part of Elaan yet but will be).

Invisible participation from photographer and uncle Vivek Devburman who wasn’t able to attend owing to an injury, but his camera made it.

Highlights : Souvik as Lola (a much “slimmer,sexier,cuter, more romantic” Bula di) and his assistant in his many avatars / Mirna’s beautiful “my brother nikhil” medley” and the sporting people who allowed us to (mehendi) tattoo them with AIDS awareness messages and their own NGO names. I have reason to believe that the latter option was rather popular !

Lowlights : The audience wasn’t particularly delighted at the concept, despite our best efforts. However, not to be dampened, the participants themselves went out of their way to involve the handful that were interested during the quiz and Souvik/Lola had everyone in splits with their one-liners. The lighting could have been better as it was an evening event. Kolkata shone and Kolkata froze us out.

The important thing is, we did not back down from our individual messages. Homosexuality, Child Sexual Abuse, “jonno” (the bangla word for sex) were all mentioned as part of the programme and that gave us all a lot of satisfaction.

CSR or not, my good sirs, you may NOT stifle our Constitutional right to free speech.

Special mention : The kids representing Diksha were Stupendous. Mindblowing.

Photographs are huge (file size), will upload later. More discussion/feedback on the orkut community.

The province of Manitoba will today bring forward the first legislation of its kind in Canada to compel all citizens, including computer technicians and Internet service providers, to report any images or examples of child pornography.
The initiative is being introduced as an amendment to the province’s Child and Family Services legislation by minister Gord MacIntosh and will expand the definition of child abuse, which already has a mandatory reporting law, to include child pornography.
“Under the new law, if someone comes across something they believe to be child pornography they have a duty to report it to Cybertip.ca,” said Lianna McDonald , director of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, the registered charity that runs the Cybertip website.
The penalty for failing to report will be up to two years in jail and a $50,000 fine, Ms. McDonald said. It’s the same penalty for those who don’t report child abuse, although Ms. McDonald said she doesn’t know of any instances where that provision has led to a prosecution.
“What it means is that under the proposed legislation, [citizens] have a legal responsibility,” she said. “The idea is to facilitate reporting.”
Ms. McDonald said that making it a legal requirement might remove some of the moral qualms that exist for those who find images of abuse on a computer, for example, and might be concerned about violating someone’s privacy.
“It certainly will facilitate things for people thinking, ‘Should I or shouldn’t I report?’ It makes it clear. For companies that repair computers, it’s clear they have a duty to report,” she said.
The proposed law could have significant implications for Internet service providers, according to Roz Prober of Beyond Borders, an organization that advocates for the protection of children.
It’s already mandatory in the United States for Internet service providers to report instances of child pornography, but the issue has not been tackled in Canada until now.
“The foot-draggers in this scenario are the Internet service providers,” Ms. Prober said. “In the U.S. they can be heavily fined [for not reporting child porn] and I think that’s the way to go here.”
Ms. Prober said she hasn’t seen the proposed legislation but expects it to be comprehensive.
Citizens will be directed to report their suspicions to the Cybertip.ca website. The site receives funding from the federal Department of Public Safety and from Manitoba Justice, Ms. McDonald said, and since 2005 it has acted as a national clearinghouse for all Internet child sexual-abuse reporting. In that time, it has received more than 25,000 reports from the public.
Ms. Prober said the site is very sophisticated and secure and would be able to resist attempts to infiltrate its database.
She said it’s important the public pass on as many tips as possible because each new image allows police to narrow in on the victims and perpetrators of sexual abuse

URL - http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071128.wmanitoba28/BNStory/National/home/

Do visit the website and have a look through the comments section. I find that most insightful, more than the article actually !

Ongoing discussion - http://www.orkut.com/CommMsgs.aspx?cmm=24455884&tid=2568922879391121981&na=4

A young Adivasi girl was stripped and photographed running for protection as onlookers whipped out their ever-handy camera phones and took photographs, videos and mms clips.. another sign of technology at it’s mis-used best.

One wouldn’t consider this as Sexual Abuse really.

Look again.

Publicly exposing a young girl - she was completely naked.
The onlookers did not have good intentions on their minds when they were taking those photographs.

Further information -

We do not have concrete proof of this yet but it is alleged that the girl was sexually assaulted. Given the circumstances, it is not impossible.

Shame on whoever is responsible for this. We refuse to upload the currently available photograph of the girl for reasons of journalistic integrity.

It is unfortunate that even the most widely-circulated Kolkata daily, “The Telegraph” did not blur out her face, even though it blur out her personal body parts.