Child sexual abuse is an uneasy subject, easier to keep silent about than not. So that’s what we usually do -- not talk about it. But that does not take away the incidence of abuse of children. And then each time it raises its ugly head in the form of some extreme case, we don’t know if it is okay to raise our voice or hang our head in shame.

We tend to do both, let some other big news capture the media attention and then wait for the next big case of child sexual abuse to shame us as a society.

But that’s not what the issue is all about -- our attitude towards this problem in a way shapes us as a society. It is these children who then grow up as individuals lacking in confidence; some of them turn into abusers.

But do we have any mechanism of knowing what turns an individual into a child abuser? Are we sure if it is the abused child who becomes one? In our quest for larger solutions like laws and policies, have we tried to understand the mind of the culprit who engages in these heinous acts? Are our sociologists and psychologists trying to pick the problem from all sides? Are the universities equipped to conduct valid research on the subject? And, finally, are the law- and policy-makers benefiting from their experience?

The media tends to pick stories that land into the domain of crime somehow, children murdered after being raped, five year olds brutally gang-raped or, as in the recent case of Kasur, children abused and then exploited after making pornographic videos of them. Whether it is stories of crime or the hushed up abuse of children that regularly goes on in the households by close relatives and servants and neighbours, our sense is that a majority of cases do not get reported.

Therefore, it is time to break the silence on this important subject. The parents need to be vigilant about how rampant this is, what are the stereotypes that they must guard against and what this can do to their children. Once again, the Kasur incident has highlighted the importance of sex education -- to make the children aware of how to secure themselves against such abuses.

Most of all, it’s the media that can play a crucial role in educating different segments of society and do sensitive programming on a sustained basis. It may do well to refrain from flashing pictures of the accused before the courts declare them as culprits.

These are issues that have been highlighted in today’s Special Report.

Read: Child Abuse: Breaking the silence