Amoli Trust

Trigger Warning: Child sexual abuse If you’re a parent, do you ask for consent from your pre-teen child before hugging them, bathing them, or changing their clothes? Do you ask for consent from your younger sibling merely to hug them? These questions might be baffling or even throw a person off-guard, but they have an immensely comprehensible answer. In India, five children are sexually abused every hour.

The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, which started as a public health emergency, has quickly snowballed into a full-blown social and economic crisis. With no end in sight, it’s a no-brainer that its effects will rage on for a long time. The socioeconomic impact of the pandemic has been catastrophic for millions of children. UNICEF estimates, about 150 million additional children live in multidimensional poverty without access to essential services.

*Trigger Warning: Child Sexual Abuse* During these two months of lockdown, as the world dealt with an unprecedented pandemic, another paralytic bane of society grew unchecked. Child sexual abuse witnessed a dizzying rise during this period of lockdown, as reported by numerous news agencies across the country. The rise in these instances of violence within the family could be majorly attributed to the lockdown, but it highlights a more concerning situation.