SHILLONG: The Assembly Committee on Women Empowerment has expressed concern over the fact that out of the 100 cases of sexual abuse reported in 2018, 96 of them are related to minors.
The chairperson of the committee,Ampareeen Lyngdoh told reporters after a meeting on Thursday that as per the Medical Superintendent of Ganesh Das, there were 100 cases reported and out of which 96 cases are concerning minors.
“These are alarming data. The committee will take up this information in our future meetings,” Lyngdoh said.
Lyngdoh also revealed that both the minors of the Madanryting case and the Jowai case who were allegedly raped are school drop outs and in both the cases, the culprits are much senior in age even as the committee called upon the parents and family to be more protective of children especially those drop outs.
”We would like to see that they are given all necessary support to ensure that they become productive citizens of the community. It is very important for the committee to ensure that despite the shame and the harm done to them, they have to go on with their lives. At such a young age to be traumatized at this level is very unfortunate and as a community, we should support them and not add to the trauma that they are undergoing,” she said.
The assembly committee chairperson also said that there must be a package from the state government especially for school dropouts as whenever there are incidents of this kind, it is usually the drop outs who become victims of such situation.
The committee was briefed by the SP of West Jaintia Hills, Lakador Syiem about the status of the gang rape against the 16 year old girl in one of the villages in the district.
“We would like to express our complete appreciation of the speedy and accurate action taken by the police of the district. We are happy and satisfied with the report that was presented to us barring the assessment report and forensic lab report. The police in the district is now waiting for a fast track hearing of the case and this is a good thing as cops have sent a clear message to the public that no crime will be entertained,” Ampareen said.
She said that in the Jaintia Hills case, seven people, including two juveniles have been arrested.
“We will review the cases in the next three months,” she said, adding that there should be rehabilitation programmes for the victims. Lyngdoh also pointed out that all the districts should have a coordinated team to attend to these kinds of occurrences in the community.
Meanwhile, a member of the Assembly Committee, Himalaya Shangpliang said that if one goes through the records, minor victims are with background of broken homes and with a single parent. “Now this is a serious and alarming situation in our society and it is the need of the state that the society at large wake up and sensitise themselves to this kind of social menace which we have to tackle at the ground level and it starts from home,” he said.
He also stated that the social welfare department needs to pull up its socks to sensitise the people as there are lots of schemes to provide rehabilitation to these kinds of victims.