Incestuous sexual abuse: Family secrets

In the past few years, media attention has been focussed on the issue of child abuse. What has come as a shock to most people is the fact that much of the atrocity is perpetrated by members of the family. AMMU JOSEPH writes on a film that has, in a sensitive manner, uncovered the truth about the prevalence of the problem in South Asia, and the social and cultural resistance to dealing with it.

"I was the apple of my parents' eye - I did well in school, teachers gave me a good report card. To all appearances, I was the good South Asian daughter - withdrawn, buried in my books, an achiever. Wouldn't it have been great if the characteristics of this "proper" South Asian girl weren't also the characteristics of a child living with a terrible secret, trying to cover up the shame that should never have been hers? I grew up in a home where we were taught valuable lessons about not wasting money, not wasting time, not wasting an education. I am left with a wasted childhood."

Grace Poore, film-maker, writer and activist

* * *

THE terrible secret Poore refers to here is the sexual abuse to which she was subjected as a child by two of her uncles. Her childhood was snatched away by these predators within her family. But she has ensured that her adulthood has not been similarly wasted. Instead, drawing on her own experience of a violent family, she has worked in different ways towards the goal of ending violence in families across the world.

She has done work in Sri Lanka for the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and in the United States for the National Coalition against Domestic Violence. She has made two films on issues of violence within the home. In "Voices Heard, Sisters Unseen," she focussed on battered women marginalised by stereotypical notions about victims of domestic violence. In "The Children We Sacrifice," her latest film, she zooms in on the incestuous sexual abuse of girls in South Asian families, both on the sub-continent and in the diaspora.

A 61-minute video documentary shot in India, Sri Lanka, the U.S. and Canada, "The Children We Sacrifice" "exposes the irony of home as source of refuge and source of violation, family as source of comfort and source of betrayal for the South Asian girl," as Poore puts it.

"I think I've been making this video in my head for about ten years," she says towards the end of the film. "I felt we needed to have a collective letter from survivors and advocates and concerned people that put out a message, a message to South Asian communities across the world that incest happens, it happens a lot. And it damages thousands and thousands of children who grow up into thousands and thousands of women with a profound sense of betrayal and abandonment by those who were supposed to care for them."

The film explores the universal crime of incest through the prism of the South Asian experience. The stories of women who have suffered incestuous sexual abuse in childhood - some from the time they were two-year-old toddlers - uncover the truth about the prevalence of the problem, the attitudinal and behavioural patterns that foster it, as well as the social and cultural resistance to dealing with it, within South Asian communities everywhere.

The video highlights the effects on victims of both the abuse and the fact that it is rarely acknowledged and tackled by their families. It seeks to destigmatise the abuse as well as speaking out about it so that more survivors can feel free to talk about and thereby deal with their experience of abuse. And, perhaps most significantly, it celebrates the struggle and resilience of women who have managed to survive the trauma of their childhoods - bringing home the important point that while survival and recovery may be difficult, they are far from impossible.

Despite the grimness of its subject, the film is not hard to watch. In fact, it is marked by an unexpected gentleness. Interviews with survivors, therapists and lawyers, including several based in India, are intercut with footage of children laughing and playing, a minimal amount of text and statistics, and paintings, poetry, dance and music by survivors of sexual violence - in an effort, explains Poore, "to provide a forum for art that captures the pain of and triumph against violent trauma."

"I would never have made a harsh film," says Poore. "that is not my style." According to her she made a conscious effort to ensure that the film is aesthetically pleasing - not merely to counterbalance the distressful narratives but also to subliminally suggest that the beautiful public image presented by many families may well conceal considerable ugliness and pain in the private sphere.

The video is now available not only in English, but also in Bengali, Hindi and Tamil. A Sinhala version is also planned. A resource book originally meant to accompany and supplement the film has evolved into a stand-alone document that can help in efforts to promote understanding of the issues involved, improve detection and intervention, and develop effective support for those who have been abused.

A Malaysian of South Asian origin, Poore was born and raised in her country of birth but has lived in the U.S. over the past 19 years. She was in India recently screening her newly-released film and facilitating discussions at workshops in different parts of the country on the sexual abuse of children within South Asian families.

Why the focus on South Asia? Apart from the fact of her own sub- continental roots, Poore cites a number of reasons for the special focus. "Sex and family are controversial topics in South Asian communities - they often draw defensive responses," she points out. "Sexual abuse by itself is an uncomfortable subject - it often elicits silence. Put sexual abuse and family together and you face a stone wall."

There is widespread resistance to the idea that sexual abuse, including incest, is prevalent among the famously child-loving, family-oriented communities of South Asia - despite growing evidence of the universal nature of sexual crimes against children, increasingly supported by statistics yielded by systematic research.

In addition, the premium placed on family ties and honour in South Asian communities often prevents them from taking action against incestuous abuse if and when it is brought to light. Immigrants of South Asian origin living in other parts of the world, who bear the additional burden of upholding the image of their minority communities, are sometimes even more reluctant to acknowledge such abuse lest it reflect badly on their culture and society. Another inhibiting factor is the high value put on female virginity in South Asian communities, which fuels fears about the implications of exposure for the marital prospects of girl victims.

The bottomline, as Poore puts it, is that in South Asian communities, wherever they may be located,

"the main reason for the code of silence is family reputation. Those who pay the price are the victims whose private pain is minimised or rendered irrelevant."

The film also seeks to shatter the many myths and misconceptions that keep South Asians from acknowledging that incestuous sexual abuse of children cuts across barriers of geography, ethnicity, class, educational status, and so on - that it happens among People Like Us as much as it does among People Like Them.

Gender is yet another barrier crossed by sexual abusers of children: boys are also vulnerable to abuse. While acknowledging this fact, Poore deals exclusively with female victims/survivors in the film.

"It is no accident that I chose to focus this video on girl children," she explains. "...Girls are more frequently targets of incestuous sexual abuse. In addition, there are different reasons for the silences around sexual abuse of the boy child versus abuse of the girl child. The effects of abuse on boys also vary slightly from effects on girls. How abused girls are viewed by South Asian society is different from how abused boys are viewed. And how South Asian society responds to the sexual abuse of boy children is different from how it responds to the abuse of girl children." While these differences do not invalidate or minimise the prevalence of the sexual abuse of boys in South Asian communities, she says, they do necessitate a separate video.

The gender question comes up in relation to perpetrators of sexual abuse, too. Research across the world suggests that 80 to 95 per cent of all child sexual abuse is committed by men, irrespective of whether the victim is male or female. This may be the reason why the issue of the female sex offender has received little attention and literature on the subject is sparse. Existing estimates of female perpetrators range from three to ten per cent of all sexual abusers.

Poore says she was unable to locate survivors who had been sexually abused by female perpetrators but acknowledges that this may have been "the result of not looking hard enough and not taking this issue seriously enough." She admits that the omission is a weakness in the video and apologises for the lapse in the resource book.

A sensitive, compassionate, balanced and inclusive approach to what is without doubt a highly emotive and complex subject marks the entire film. For instance, despite the inescapable fact that the majority of sexual abusers is male, the video does not demonise men. This is particularly remarkable in view of Poore's personal experience of abuse by two male relatives and her many years of work in the field of violence against women, which is usually perpetrated by men.

She explains that it is her activism within the women's movement that has contributed most significantly to her holistic view of these issues, although she has also undergone therapy to deal with the after-effects of her own abuse. She sees violence, including sexual abuse, as an issue of power rather than of gender per se. According to her, "Gender gets into the equation mainly because gender involves power. Male privilege equals power. So, by default, gender and power become synonymous."

"Feeling that not all men are the enemies also comes from the knowledge that not all women are your allies," she says. She believes it is important to acknowledge that while women may not possess the privilege of gender they often do have power over others by virtue of adulthood, class, and so on, and that some of them do abuse their positions of power and privilege.

She believes that her age (45) and experience have helped her develop her present outlook, which comes across most vividly in the measured tone of the film. "Even ten years ago I may not have seen men as allies," she admits. "But since then I've had the privilege of meeting a few - albeit very, very few - men whom I consider my allies. I have been impressed by the few men I have come across who are truly working very hard to make a real difference to themselves and to others. Maybe the video would have had a different tone if I had made it a decade ago. Even though the content may not have changed substantively, the tone may have been different. I guess the video is a product of its time within my lifetime."

She admits that some men have objected to the collage within the film of images of ordinary men - on the grounds that it implies that all men are potential perpetrators. She thinks they may have been more comfortable if the photographs had shown sleazy, slimy, oily men who fit into their stereotypical image of the "perverts" who commit such crimes - which in turn reinforces the common but false assumption that men with a certain kind of liberal upbringing and education do not.

Nevertheless, she says, most male viewers have so far responded to the film in terms of wanting to do something about the problem, despite the fact that it clearly indicates that men are the main perpetrators of sexual abuse. The tone of the film may be the critical factor that has prevented them from belittling or dismissing its contents in a kneejerk, negative reaction. The tone may also ensure that the film reaches out to a wide spectrum of women.

"At the end of the day it's all about people working together and becoming allies in the fight against the sexual abuse of children," she points out. "What I want above all is for people to take the issue seriously and to do something about it."

For details about availability of this film, contact

SHAKTIVIDEO@aol.com.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Features
Previous : A change is underway
Next     : A health unto their Majesties