`Violence against girl students in educational institutions

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How safe are girls in govt schools?

Thursday December 16 2004 00:00 IST

CHENNAI: On July 7 this year, eight-year-old Saroja, a student at

the Government Primary School, Perunthurai Taluk, Erode district,

was raped by her 50-year-old alcoholic headmaster.

It turned out that four years ago, the headmaster had committed a

similar offence in another school and had been `punished' with a

transfer. A brutally traumatised Saroja now refuses to leave home.

On January 27, Priya, an eight standard student of Government Higher

Secondary School, Villur village, Madurai, watched as her Tamil

teacher locked the classroom door and molested three of her

classmates.

The teacher was remanded for just four days.

On November 4, 96 girl students studying in the tenth standard of

the ITO Higher Secondary School, Ayakudi, Dindigul, were stripped

naked and searched by their teachers, who wanted to know which of

them was having her menstrual period.

The reason? A soiled sanitary napkin had been found in the school

premises and the girls were unwilling to confess whose it had been.

After protests from parents, four teachers were suspended for just

five days.

The horror stories don't end here. At the end of nearly three hours

of a public hearing on `Violence against girl students in

educational institutions in Tamil Nadu', organised by the National

Commission for Women and the Tamil Nadu State Commission for Women

in the city on Wednesday, what emerged was a gut-wrenching picture

of how sexually unsafe government schools in the State have become

for girl children.

As a shocked audience and a panel consisting of Poornima Advani,

chairperson, National Commission for Women, V Vasanthi Devi,

chairperson, Tamil Nadu State Commission for Women, retired High

Court Judge Janardhanan and former DGP V R Lakshminarayanan

listened, parents and relatives from nearly every part of the State

deposed on how child after child was stripped of her dignity in

State-run institutions. The public hearing had only children of

government schools and their parents/relatives deposing.

In most cases, the abuser - who almost always was either the

headmaster or a school-teacher - went scot-free. The most

serious `punishment' was a transfer to another school, where the

offender invariably repeated the crime.

``It is a matter of eternal shame that such shocking perversities

should have been perpetrated in our government schools. And what is

worse is that Education Department officials in Chennai seem to be

completely unaware of any such incident,'' rued Vasanthi Devi.

Details of thirteen cases of sexual abuse had been collected by one

NGO alone--the Madurai-based People's Watch. Even as the parents

deposed in public, the brutalised children themselves gave in-camera

deposition before Jayam, former Director, Institute of Child Health,

Chennai.

``Such incidents have not come to my attention till now as normally,

in such cases, action is taken by district-level officials

themselves. However, now that I have the details, I will see to it

that immediate disciplinary action is initiated against the abusers.

A mere transfer seems too mild a punishment,'' K ppan, Director

or Elementary Education, told this website's newspaper later.

(Names of the children have been changed to protect their identity)

http://www.newindpress.com/Newsitems.asp?

ID=IET20041215102156 & Title=Southern+News+%

2D+Tamil+Nadu & Topic=0 & CHENNAI:~