INDIA
Opindia
May 6, 2018
The 2015 movie ‘Spotlight’ had a profound, lasting impact worldwide, not only because it was a finely made motion picture that spoke about the long-standing issue of child sexual abuse by the church, but also for the manner in which it highlighted the fact that the church and the whole organisational system of Christian authorities go to elaborate lengths to deny, hide, hush up the crimes and take great measures to shelter and rehabilitate the guilty priests. In one powerful scene, Mitchell Garabedian tells the journalist Michael Rezendes, “If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one.” He was, of course, referring to the deeply rooted system of the clergy, lawyers and private patrons including government officials who go to great lengths to cover up the crimes and help the guilty go unpunished.
India, sadly, has not been immune to the plague either. Christian priests and churches, like most cases worldwide, have been targeting the poor, destitute for their crimes and the cases go unnoticed. At most, a case grabs a little spot in newspapers for a day or two and then is lost in obscurity. It is mostly due to the speed and reachability of digital and social media that nowadays, more and more cases are coming to highlight. Even if there are many, many cases, none of them get the media attention or outrage. The sordid tale was also documented by one Varun Reddy on Twitter.
Recently in Vallampadu, Andhra Pradesh, a 45-year-old pastor was booked for brutally raping an 11-year old girl. In July 2017, Father Saji Joesph, a priest who was the director of a children’s home in Kerala’s Wayanad district, was arrested after allegations of sexually abusing minor boys. In 2013, an illegal shelter home housing dozens of children from extremely poor families in North Eastern India was reported in Jaipur. One girl had accused priest Jacob John of rape and as many as 13 girls were suspected to have been sexually abused by the priest.
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