Hyderabad: In a bid to help young girls speak out against sexual abuse, child rights activist Jakeer Hussain Shaik, 38, created a comic book on safety. His mission to raise awareness paid off, with at least two girls reporting that they were sexually abused since the books were first distributed about a year-and-a-half ago.
“In both cases, the perpetrators were brought to book and sent to jail,” Jakeer Hussain Shaik told TOI on Monday. The books have so far been distributed to nearly 12,000 students in 165 govt schools. In fact, impressed by his work, Microsoft had invited Jakeer to support him in his mission on Oct 29.
Jakeer’s quest to get girls to speak out if they are being physically and sexually abused began when he came across a traumatic incident four years ago. He saw a girl jump from the fifth floor of a building and end her life. The schoolgirl wrote in a note that an ‘uncle’ in one of the apartments sexually abused her, and therefore she was ending her life.
Replacing fear with understanding
A former software professional, Jakeer said that children are often too scared to speak about abuse, and in many cases the accused threaten them with dire consequences.
To make it easier for teachers to understand their situation, in his book Jakeer introduced an ‘activity chapter’ that asks the crucial question: ‘How do you feel today?’. The child is asked to circle dates on a calendar, printed in the book, with one of three colours. If the child is happy, she can use green; if she is feeling sad, orange; and if she is feeling scared, red.
Cases of abuse reported
When schools reopened for a fresh academic year in June this year, a seven-year-old girl coloured all the dates of the book for the previous two months in red. When the teacher began speaking with her, the girl opened up and said she was sexually abused every day by a relative. “We took the matter to the police, and a case was booked, and the person was sent to jail,” Jakeer said.
In another such incident, a girl marked red in the calendar on certain dates. In this case too, the teacher learnt that a relative sexually abused her. The man was arrested and sent to jail.
Book translated in Braille
In July this year, an eight-year-old visually impaired girl was sexually abused by a 25-year-old sanitation worker in a residential school for blind children in the city. Moved by this incident, Jakeer also got his book printed in Braille. Some of these books were distributed on Nov 16.
