Is Harassment Refrained Only to Pink Bow?

By Aishwarya S

The place where we live today celebrating Independence day, I ask myself have we truly thoroughly achieved independence? Do we really have freedom? As much happy as I am for all the development and growing digital world, my heart shatters to those untold and unnoticed stories. One of the stories that crushed my heart and soul which my close friend experienced, I would like to raise an awareness to all.

While my friend, Varun and I were talking one evening, he broke into tears as he began to share a story of his past. As he came to the end of the narration, I realized that we don’t see men and women the same. Due to history, Feminism took place and today it hit a totally different meaning as I think about it. Feminism is a movement to simply treat women as equal to men. But today, it took a turn and people have clearly misunderstood what it is! When a girl claims to have faced harassment, the world stops. But what if the boy says?

Well, a 9 year old boy who went to learn football being molested on the ground by a 20 year old student was never taken into serious account or anyone believed it! There were five of the 20 year old boys who shut his mouth from screaming and touched him inappropriately. He felt discomfort and pain and so he tried to explain to his coach who lived nearby but he couldn’t understand what he was trying to express. So then he goes to his parents immediately to tell what happened and they didn’t believe the child. Couldn’t tell his friends thinking they would mock or stay away from him! Now, where will he go? None to teach good touch bad touch? What are the schools and parents teaching if not this?

Later, at the age of 12, he was again harassed by a school teacher who gave excuses of him not studying well to taking extra classes and took advantage of being a teacher. He touched him inappropriately and made the child sit on him as he taught him. Yet, immediately he runs to his parents to tell this in the hope that they would believe him but life wasn’t so easy for that 12 year old boy.

As he grew up with his grandmother whilst his parents were away in Saudi, yet another incident took place as he reached the age of 16. As he stayed back for Science coaching class, he was sexually assaulted and molested. As he knew this was yet another day, he ran home and locked himself up to darkness. Sitting hopeless not knowing who to share and what to tell, he started to live in fear and darkness.

Life passed by then a few months ago, his own uncle tried to misbehave and harass him! But now, he lost the will and hope to tell his parents and sat alone and in darkness for about 7 days thinking what to do, what will society think, what is he going to do with his life with all these

dark nights that he has been through in his life. Today as a grown up, 22 years old, he decided to file a complaint in the Police Station to put a full stop to all the nonsense and also thought about other boys who go through this problem and are forced to keep shut about it. He decided to be the voice. After a week he went to the police station and on his way, he got a phone call from his mother saying his uncle passed away due to a car accident.

But this doesn’t end my dear friend! Because, according to the statistics, every 6 minutes a man is being sexually assaulted and every nine minutes a child. It doesn’t matter if it’s a boy or a girl, a man or a woman, male or female! It’s a body that is being misused and an action must be taken in order to stop this scrutiny. Respect every human equally irrespective of race, caste, gender and color.

As my friend Varun shared this with me about what he went through, I was drenching in tears as I felt helpless and felt bad for what he went through. Nobody deserves to experience such hasty days and all deserves to be happy and stay in light! I would like to raise this toast as to how strong he came out to be and also want to share with all that when a child shares this sort of abuse, with parents or teachers, believe him. Take actions that need to be taken. Don’t refrain from your thoughts that harassment can happen only to girls. Boys do experience and let’s respect them as equal humans. Let’s hope for a better change!

By Aishwarya S