Geetarani Lourembam
SENIOR PROJECT COORDINATOR
Trigger Warning: Child Sexual Abuse
Suhana (name changed) is a victim of child sexual abuse whose case was recently referred to Prerana by the Child Welfare Committee. In the first interaction with the social worker, upon the referral, the child shared that her biological father had sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions. The child had also given birth to a child four months ago, but since she had also been in a romantic relationship with someone around the time, she had not known who the biological father of the newborn child was. It was only recently that she had found out that it was her father. Suhana shared that this had deeply distressed her, but what had worsened the situation was that no one had disclosed the DNA results to her. She shared that while this was a grim reality, she should have been informed as she had a right to know. After the first interaction of the social worker with the child, the child was shortly referred to the counselor for mental health support.
Suhana’s case pointed to a dilemma often faced by those working with children in need of care and protection. Many times, the stakeholders working with the child find themselves troubled over sharing new developments in the legal case of the child if the news can be triggering for the child. The stakeholders, in such cases, may choose to not disclose all the information. However. it is important to share relevant information with the child in an age-appropriate manner with an effective psychosocial support system in place to help them process the same.
While some children wish to move beyond their past and do not wish to be regularly updated about legal processes, some children want to be updated about these processes. In this situation, it becomes significant to have open age-appropriate communication with the child and to let the child determine if they would want to be kept updated about their legal processes or not. It is important to note that this may become an ever-evolving process rather than a one-time activity. The child may decide to change this decision as their rehabilitation progresses but when key information is kept hidden or informed in a delayed manner to the child about their case, it might make the child a passive participant in the rehabilitation process. Additionally, when the child later finds out that such information has been kept hidden for long, the child might face difficulties in trusting the ‘trusted’ adults around them.
A few years ago, Prerana had a similar case, where a child’s elder sibling had passed away and the family had withheld the information from the child. In that case, a social worker had only found out about the same, upon visiting the child’s native village to enquire about the well-being of the elder sibling. The family was insistent that the information must not be shared but the social worker believed that the child had a right to know, since she was very worried about not having heard from her sister in a long time. In the presence of two counselors and the staff of the Home, this information was revealed to the child. She was also helped in processing her emotions through psycho-social support.
