Bengaluru: “I tell my story, not because it is unique, but because it is not. It is the story of many girls," said Pakistani education activist Malala Yousafzai, in her Nobel Prize acceptance speech earlier this month.
She's right. For every Malala that the world celebrates, thousands of other unsung heroes do their bit to change the world. They get no fanfare, no coveted awards ever come their way these are the greatest stories never told.
99% of the cases relating to child sexual abuse are never resolved, simply because the victims are unwilling to take on their attackers. Eight-year-old Shalini did not resign herself to this dismal statistic, however, she took her attackers head on.
She was rescued from a brothel in Mumbai early in January 2014 and brought to the government-run orphanage here in Bengaluru.
Despite suffering from full blown tuberculosis, she worked with Mumbai police and helped them nab the man who molested her.
She pinpointed his phone, which he had used to show her obscene pictures and identified him through a mugshot. She even went back to Mumbai to testify against him in a court of law.
The Refuge Home in Kothanur is home to about 25 young girls, all of whom had been abandoned on the streets. The mood is upbeat on December 31, as the kids laugh, dance, sing and tuck happily into plates of piping hot biriyani a special treat to mark the end of 2014.
Shalini is among them, laughing and smiling, but somehow, she stands out. Her eyes are filled with an awareness that is far beyond her years as she watches her brothers and sisters make merry around her.
When I ask her to step away and talk to me, she grows tense and wary at once. It was only with the assurance that her adopted mother, Beulah, would remain with us that she accepts and retreats to the quiet of an upstairs bedroom.
Still, she refused to speak until Beulah left the room. “Did anything bad happen to you in Mumbai?” She shakes her head in response.
“Did anyone misbehave with you?" No. After much coaxing, she sits before me, cross-legged on the floor and begins to talk in a smattering of Kannada, Hindi and Bengali.
Shalini was born in Bijapur, the last in a long line of girls to parents who desperately wanted a son. "When I was two years old, they sent me away to live with my daadi (grandmother) in Mumbai.
When I got there, I was treated like a servant," she said. "There were three other girls there, all from Bengal. Men would come in everyday, pay them some money and do all kinds of bad things to them."
By the time she was six years old, Shalini was slowly introduced to the business herself. "There was a man who would come to see me, pay money and make me do ‘things to him," she said, her voice almost devoid of emotion as she rattles off the story of her life. "He would show me 'gandha' pictures on his mobile phone as well."
In early 2014, the brothel in Mumbai was raided by an international organisation that rescues trafficked children. By this time, Shalini was suffering from tuberculosis and was rushed to the hospital.
Instead of clamming up, like most other children her age, she told the doctors what had happened to her. A lady cop from the Mumbai police force was assigned to her case.
"She showed me a mobile and asked me if it belonged to the man who molested me," she said. "It was a white phone and he had often made me look at pictures, so I recognised it. I also identified him through a series of photographs."
After this, she was brought to Bengaluru by the state Child Welfare Commitee and put in the government-run orphange in Koramangala. "I hated it there," she said. "It was like a prison and all I wanted was to see my mother. I would cry everyday."
The CWC then identified Refuge Home in Kothanur, as a likely place for Shalini to live. "I met Beulah amma and she asked me if I wanted to come live with her. I said yes."
The child who arrived at the home on June 6 was nothing like the one I met today. Debilitated by her illness and severe psychological trauma, the gaunt eight-year-old had heavy dark circles around her eyes and barely said a word.
"For the first three weeks, she refused to leave my side," said Beulah John. After the other children were tucked away in their bunk beds for the night, Shalini would slip away, clutching her blanket and return to tugging at Beulah's saree. "I would keep her next to me in the night until she felt safe enough to be with the other girls," said Beulah.
For the first time, Shalini realised that life was capable of kindness too. She had never been to school before and couldn't read or write. She rebelled and her notebooks were full of angry scribbles.
"Love can cure anything," said Beulah and she's right, for the constant care and affection Shalini received began to pay off.
In six months, Shalini learned to speak both English and Kannada. She also loves to dance and sing. As much as she tries to hide it, though, her past is like a demon always snapping at her heels. Wasn’t she ever afraid to face her molestor? Her answer comes at once.
“No. He hurt me, why should I keep quiet?” She might be too young to understand the enormity of her courage and everything she has been through, but it's only a matter of time before it hits her. Maybe love will see her through that, too.
