Child rape/prostitution: Here's what must be done to punish 'customers'

In 2017, four cases of rape were reported every day in India. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data shows that incidents of child rape have increased by over 82% in 2016 compared to 2015.

As we look at these deeply disturbing numbers, is it not apt that there is a grave concern over what the establishment has done for the safety of women and children?

If you think the above figures are shocking, even more distressing is the fact that thousands of rapes across India continue to be unreported out of the fear of social stigma.

Those that are reported are often met with insensitive investigating officers, shoddy probe and a protracted legal system that only serves to delay justice.

‘Victim blaming’ is rampant in rape investigations. Remember the curious case of the ‘feeble no’, or the usual attempts of defense lawyers to question the ‘character’ of the victim – sometimes using terms like ‘she was habituated to sex’ to defend the crime.

Why should a person’s sexual history be the focus of a probe in a case of sexual harassment or rape? It is almost akin to saying that if you are sexually active, it is okay to be violated once in a while.
In most cases of sexual harassment and assault, it boils down to a case of one person’s word against another. In a patriarchal nation like ours, discrediting a woman’s version by questioning her moral fibre seems to be the preferred escape.

Even in cases where minors are involved, it is disheartening to see that children are expected to recall the gruesome nature of the crime. Most disturbingly, as in the Kathua case, the identity of the child is splashed across newspapers and social media – in total violation of the law that forbids the revelation of the identity of a child rape victim.

Why does the focus in these cases continues to be on the victims/survivors? Why isn’t the narrative being turned on its head to question the offenders, just like the starting point of any decent investigation should start with questioning the perpetrators. It is their characters, moral values, sexual and mental histories instead that should be put to strict scrutiny.

This is what Roop Sen, researcher on sexual violence against children, had to say on some of these issues:

Why do we need to focus on offenders instead of focusing ONLY on victims in cases of child sexual violence?
Commonly, the narrative on child sexual violence is focused on victims, wherein it focuses on the plight of victims, the violence and suffering s/he endured in the act of violence. The narrative then explores why children are vulnerable, often citing poverty and parental neglect as reasons, and the conclusion drawn is that children must be educated on good touch/ bad touch, and parents must become more protective. In the case of child prostitution and sex trafficking in children, the narrative may extend to traffickers and ‘madams’ being held as the offenders who prostitute children for profit. What the narrative completely ignores is that for every single child or adolescent who is prostituted, there are hundreds of adults, mostly men, who pay to sexually exploit that child. Yet, they are invisible, never prosecuted (especially if they have paid for sexual exploitation of children). There are no researches on who these people are that demand children for sex, who make it profitable for pimps and traffickers to traffic children into prostitution.

In cases of Nirbhaya, and more recently in Unnao and Kathua, offenders (the accused) are visible and centre stage in the debate, isn’t it?
Yes, in cases of rape, there seems to be greater attention on rapists. But when it comes to child prostitution, sex offenders are completely invisible. There is no data, no one has conducted any researchers, even when children have been rescued from brothels, the police have not investigated to find out who may have prostituted these children, and the police stop at arresting and prosecuting pimps, madams and brothel managers.

Why so? Isn’t there a law that penalises ‘customers’ of child prostitution?
Yes, there is a law, that clearly indicts sex offenders who prostitute children. But this law is rarely applied to prosecute these offenders. Why so? There is a complex set of reasons, some of them are below:
1. The payment for sex, even when the victim is a child, makes it ‘consensual’ for many people. They argue that the ‘real culprits are the madams and pimps, and not the customer, who – they feel – may not even know that the victim is underage. If the same victim would be raped (not in exchange for money), they are far clearer that the rapist is an offender.
2. The police argue that investigating ‘customers’ of child prostitution requires skill, money and a robust strategy. Child prostitution is not seen as a problem of prominence by governments, and therefore the investment required in terms of manpower, money and expertise does not become a mandate and priority for the government or law enforcement.
3. The media has never taken on the issue either. Journalists who cover the issue focus on the victim and how s/he may have suffered or been exploited, strengthening the narrative that child sexual exploitation is an issue of poverty, neglect and vulnerability of children. Their narrative does not draw attention on sex offenders.
4. NGOs who work against child prostitution also focus on prosecution of brothel managers, pimps, madams and, sometimes, traffickers. They have never drawn the attention towards prosecuting customers. In my opinion, it reflects the overall patriarchal mindset that does not question male sexuality and its sexual violence. Somewhere, it believes that male sexual privilege cannot be challenged.

What about prostitution of adults? Do men then have a right to buy sex from an adult?
The issue of child prostitution and adult prostitution are different things. Of course, there are many adult women, especially young women who are between the ages of 18 and 25 who are trafficked and forced into prostitution, but there are also adult women, men and trans-genders in prostitution, who may not have been trafficked or forced into prostitution. Their reasons of prostitution may be economic, psychological, social – and that is something that needs to be understood differently. Sex with adults and sex with children are different things, and so it is the same with prostitution.

What should be done to shift the attention to buyers/ customers/ offenders in the sexual violence against children narrative?
1. Police need to prosecute customers of child prostitution. Every state government needs to ensure that the Anti-Human Trafficking units in the CID build intelligence on child prostitution and those who buy children for sexual exploitation. The district AHTUs needs to actively investigate leads based on intelligence and arrest customers/ sex offenders who solicit child prostitution.
2. Journalists need to conduct sting operations and investigative pieces on child prostitution.
3. NGOs working on child prostitution need to help survivors to speak about their ‘customers’. Many of them may have normalised the offenders’ behaviour because they have also been made to believe that because since the customers pay for sex, it makes it acceptable. This needs to be broken through their counselling programme.
4. Psychologists should conduct research on those who have been convicted for sexually exploiting children. Understanding the offenders’ psychology and their narratives will help in everyone learning about causal factors and help prevention programmes.

Dr PM Nair, (former DG Police) Chair Professor, TISS, said there were different reasons why this hasn’t been institutionalized. “First, lack of skills in responders. Police need to be skilled, they need professional skills. Secondly, the response is still NGO-driven. NGOs focus on rescue and related work – more rescue means they get more money from funders. Hence, the response systems need a paradigm shift.” He added, that focus should be on “demand” and “offenders” who are the cause and those who create cause and perpetuate demand but not on “rescue” and “victims”.

In sum, we need to take a long, hard look at a system which seems to penalize the victims and not the criminals. The onus should never be on the victim, who has already been violated and traumatized, to fight for justice and find closure. A civil society owes it to its citizens to provide an environment where all feel safe and secure and know that justice will be served.