The suicide cases of two teenage girls in Coimbatore and Karur districts of Tamil Nadu because of sexual assault have shaken the people of the state to the core. The case in Karur district was even more disturbing as the suicide note written by the victim was so heart wreching that it gave chills to all. Being afraid to reveal the identity of the perpetrator, she wrote: “I should be the last girl to die of sexual harassment.”
“There was an air of anger, frustration, hopelessness among the parents, students, and the general society, and even the administration was taken aback. One of the important points for the administration in both the cases was to inquire in detail and put the perpetrators behind bars, but another most important thing was to prevent such incidents where there is loss of life,” said District Collector of Karur, Prabhushankar T Gunalan, who took an innovative initiative of preventing sexual harassment and assault by launching the initiative ‘Nimirndhu Nil, Thunindhu Sol’.
COME FORWARD AND SPEAK UP
After the incident took place, the DC appealed to the parents and children to stay strong through a press release and asked them to report to the administration if a similar case comes up anywhere in the district. He provided them a helpline number and, also, introduced a WhatsApp number to report such cases. The initiative, ‘Nimirndhu Nil, Thunindhu Sol, which, when translated, means ‘Stand up and speak up with courage’, was initiated last Sunday.
The officer said, “On the very same day, we received a lot of messages where girls reported cases of sexual harassment. One of the cases was related to cybercrime in which a girl was being threatened by one of the boys who was trying to spoil her image. We immediately nabbed that boy and took police action against him. The girl was counselled along with her parents. Therefore, we realized that this initiative should be taken to all the girl students in Karur.”
SPREADING THE MESSAGE
There are around 26,000 girl students studying in 9-12 grade in Karur district. These students are spread across 201 schools. The district administration developed a message under this awareness programme wherein 20 senior officials from the District Collectorate were chosen to spread awareness by personally visiting each school in the district.
Mr. Gunalan said, “We did not choose the school and education department for this purpose as it would have seemed like a class, which would have really not served the purpose. Therefore, we wanted our government officials to speak to the girls personally.”
Each official was allotted 10 schools, out of which they needed to cover half of them each day. In just two days, the entire district was covered, and the message was spread to all the 26,000 girls. The administration simply developed a child-friendly content in which they were taught various things that would help them face such a situation in future. During this session, the existing legal Acts for their protection such as the POSCO and Child Marriage Prohibition Act were explained to them.
QUESTIONNAIRE
At the end of the session, the government official gave a questionnaire to each girl student to fill up. It contained queries regarding the basic details of the child and, also, if any kind of sexual abuse was being faced either by them or their friends. The form was collected after the session and were scrutinized later on. Around 150 messages have been received so far and many parents, teachers and students have reached out to the district administration for help or to report.
The initiative has become quite popular and the Director, Social Welfare, Govt of Tamil Nadu, has also issued a circular to all other districts of the state to adopt the Karur model for awareness generation among girl students.
