New Delhi: Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi on Wednesday extended her support to a petition by a filmmaker-activist who said that “male child sexual abuse is an ignored reality in India”.
Maneka in a reply to the petition said that a first-of-its-kind study on male survivors of child sexual abuse would be conducted.
“Another much neglected sphere of child sexual abuse is male survivors. Child sexual abuse is gender neutral. Boys who are sexually abused as children spend a lifetime of silence because of the stigma and shame attached to male survivors speaking out. It is a serious problem and needs to be addressed,” she said in her response to the petition on Change.org by filmmaker Insia Dariwala.
She said that following the petition, she had in September 2017 instructed the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights to look into the issue.
