Saturday, December 2, 2006

Incest - When the abuser is someone in the "family"

http://in.news.yahoo.com/061202/43/69xt8.html

It hurts like hell when the pain is intended and you don't deserve it

It kills when the person who hurts you is someone whom you have placed implicit trust in.

To top it off, Indian society has this brilliant habit of familiarizing every "friend of the family" into the family hierarchical structure and thereby making it really tough for a young member to go upto his/her parents and say " x uncle tried to touch me". The most common response to such accusations would be "tut tut darling he's like family to us..must be your overactive imagination again".

Respect and regard are subjective terms in this beautiful,potential-filled country. We as children are told never ever to talk to strangers / offer personal information to them BUT with these so-called "family friends" everything is an open book.


A few statistics to shake you up -

In India, 80% of cases of child sexual abuse are categorized as Incest.

What is Incest exactly ?

Incest is a term used to describe/categorize incidents of abuse that have occured at the hands of a family member or "blood relation" as we gory people like to call them. However, in context with the sociology at play with regard to how close we keep our friends and acquaintances, incidents that have involved them have also been categorized under Incest.
A clearer definition is available here.
You could also check this out.

Unfortunately most of the links provided belong to the US and the UK. You might wonder why i prefer international websites to the national ones. The reason is simple - these guys have understood and learned to frame certain definitions more accurately, and i have personally found them to be much more comprehensive and easy to manouver.