The Bhutanese Leading the way.
Tenzing Lamsang/ Thimphu
The Psychiatry Department of the Jigme Dorji Wangchuck National Referral Hospital (JDWNRH) within a space of two weeks are giving counseling for 5 cases of rape and attempted rape of young girls ranging between the ages of 6 and 9.
The 5 cases
Two of the cases are from Thimphu of which the most recent one occurred on 11 October 2022.
According to the Royal Bhutan Police (RBP) in this case a 9-year-old girl and an 8-year-old girl studying in one of the schools in South Thimphu were walking home in the Chubogang area after school, and were resting by the side of the road.
At that time a man wearing a dark blue hoody, a black and white pant and a blue surgical mask approached them and made some small talk asking them about their class and what was their age.
The girls replied and as they walked away the nine-year-old girl noticed that the man was now following them and she felt something was wrong.
The second time she looked the man had caught up to them and he suddenly picked her and started taking her to a secluded shrub and brush area.
The girl shouted, fought and punched him and she shouted at her friend to throw stones at him.
However, the man kept carrying her into the brush where he dropped her and she kept fighting him even getting abrasions on her knees and with all the commotion she managed to fight and run away.
She took the eight-year-old girl and they ran till they reached a signboard and where they met a woman and asked for her phone, after which the nine-year-old called her father who came to the location.
The girl pointed to the area and showed the man trying to now hide in the brush to her father, but the man on being spotted ran away from the scene.
The police were also called to the scene and a team was deputed to keep an eye on the area.
Around four days later when it was almost dark a 23-year-old woman was walking on the same path when she noticed a similar looking man following her. She was aware about the attempted rape of the school child and so she quickly called her father who also called the school girl’s father who in turn called the police.
The police promptly arrived on the scene and arrested the person who was found to be a driver working for one of the hotels in town.
The school girl could identify the person as the one who attacked her and the police took him into custody.
The suspect claimed that he ‘likes children’ and was only attempting to ‘play’ with her, but the police are not buying the story.
The girl is deeply traumatized.
Before this, not very far away from the same location at a building near Dr Tobgyel School a six-year-old girl in July 2022 was playing in front of the building when a man picked up the girl and carried her inside the building passage and put her on a table and attempted to strip her.
The girl’s father heard the cries in time and he came out and rescued his daughter, apprehended the man and called the police.
In this case the suspect is suspected to be mentally deranged as he was known to move around half dressed or even naked in the area. The six-year-old girl is undergoing counselling and is also in deep trauma over the incident.
The RBP is charge sheeting both the above cases as abduction and attempted statutory rape of a child below 12.
In the first case the police are planning to take his DNA samples and compare it to the still unsolved Paro rape and murder case and also see if he was involved in anyway in the suspected rape and murder Dangrena case in Dechencholing.
The Psychiatry Department are also counseling two rape cases from Wangdue. One of the recent cases happened in late September 2022 when a six-year-old girl was raped by a 22-year-old man known to the family after luring her away with lies. To cover his crime he even attempted to kill her after the act by squeezing her neck so hard that her blood capillaries burst and she was covered in blood.
The six-year-old is also under therapy at JDWNRH and in very deep trauma as she just comes in, lies her head down on the table and buries her head in her arms.
Another case being counseled is an eight-year-old girl again from Wangdue who was raped by a 22-year-old while returning from school. The girl is also in deep trauma.
The fifth case under counseling is a seven-year-old girl from Tsirang on whom there was an attempt to rape.
An increasing trend
A medical staff at the psychiatry department said that going by the five cases which came to the department in the last two weeks it seems there is an increasing trend, but this could also be due to more awareness and reporting of such issues.
This similar assessment of an increasing trend of rapes, attempted rapes and even molestation of young children was even shared by the RBP official who dealt with the two Thimphu cases and also a senior RENEW official who provides counseling to children who have undergone sexual assault and abuse. They, also felt it could be due to more awareness and people coming forward, but the RENEW official also said one really does not know.
The data from the RBP shows that nationally in 2022 from January until 28 October there were 8 cases of statutory rape which is rape of a child of 12 years and below. This is compared to 7 such cases in 2021 and 6 cases in 2020.
Similarly, in the 10 months of 2022 there were 3 attempted rapes of 12 years and below children, 13 child sexual molestation cases and 2 child abuse cases.
In 2022 again there were 36 cases of rape of a child above 12 years (see box).
The official figures above are only the tip of the iceberg as many cases are not even reported.
Known perpetrators
In terms of the profile of the perpetrators the medical staff said that the psychiatry department have started to build one. “We have just started to study, but the perpetrators could be psychopaths, have anti-social personality and cases also happen when substances are abused,” said the medical staff.
RENEW is currently sheltering 22 girl children of various ages and the majority of them are survivors of sexual assault and abuse for whom it was not even safe to go back to their own families. Other cases are of neglect or abandonment and physical and extreme emotional abuse, but in some ways they are all linked.
The RENEW officer who regularly deals with such cases and provides counseling to children said that in around 80 to 90 percent of the sexual assault cases of children the perpetrator is known to the child or the family as a family member, family friend, neighbor etc.
She said the abuser are often the step father, uncles, friends of the parents, male cousins, male neighbours, teachers and even fathers and most of the abuse happens within the four walls of the home. This means that children are also survivors of incest within the family.
She said it was often noticed that even after a child reported the abuse to the family members they would often be dismissive, accuse the child of lying and side with the uncle.
She said she came across a case where both the step father and mother were alcoholics and after getting drunk the step father would abuse the daughter in front of the mother, but the mother would still side with the step father.
In another case both the parents of two young sisters died and they were placed under the care of relatives, but the older sister was getting abused and there was a danger of the younger one also being next and so both of them had to be rescued.
While mainly girls are vulnerable there are also increasing cases where young boys are also victims of rape and sexual abuse. In March 2021 a 38-year-old man had raped an eight-year-old boy who was coming back from school alone in Tsirang.
International literature also shows that while the majority of abusers are men or boys but there are also some cases when women and girls are the rapists and abusers.
The medical staff, RBP official and RENEW official all three shared the same assessment that the overwhelming majority of victims in these cases are from the lower socio-economic strata like daily wage workers, farmers, those without a steady income and additional factors like alcoholic parents and single parents making them even more vulnerable.
The medical staff said that well off or middle class parents pick up and drop their children from school while poorer parents cannot afford to do so and so when their children walk alone they are more vulnerable.
Trauma
The medical staff at the psychiatry department said that the rape and attempted rape leads to acute distress in the children.
“They no longer feel safe even with family at home, have trouble sleeping at night, are depressed and have acute mental health issues that can even lead to suicidal tendencies,” said the official.
The medical staff said the children, though they are young, know that something wrong has happened with them and even in the attempted rape cases the act of abduction itself leaves a deep trauma.
The RENEW official said that when children are abused they do not come out easily to share the full extent of the abuse, and they are embarrassed and even fearful and it takes a lot of effort to get them to share and connect the dots and sometimes it can take years.
She said that when children undergo sexual abuse they undergo a lot of trauma and so every time they see a man or boys they get scared and anxious. Sometimes the trigger is especially high in cases when the man or boy resembles the abuser in some way.
“Even we (female staff) sometimes forget that the child is a survivor of sexual abuse and so when we pat them for doing well then the child shrinks from the touch. They don’t like to be touched at all,” she added.
The children not only suffer from depression but also PTSD or post traumatic stress disorder.
She said that such children are often more difficult to manage be it at the shelter or at school and develop behavioral issues.
Legal hurdle
One major challenge for survivors of child sexual abuse is that it becomes very difficult to legally prosecute the perpetrators in the absence of medical proof of other concrete proof.
The RENEW official said that there is a certain hypocrisy here as when adult females give statements that they were sexually abused it is accepted by the police and courts as evidence, but when children say it their statement does not have the same weight.
“When family members and children come to us they have so much expectation that justice will be done, but our current legal system and laws are not friendly for child survivors. The police ask for more proof and drop the case from there itself even if the child’s statement is there,” said the official.
She said the child with great courage would repeat the same statement with details time and again, but it is not taken as being enough and so there needs to be some change on the investigation and legal front.
The RBP in turn say that if they do not gather enough evidence the Office of the Attorney General returns the case or even when the case reaches the court the judge asks the perpetrator if his confession to the RBP is true and the perpetrator thus has a way out.
The medical staff also shared that it is difficult to prove such cases in court and often the perpetrators come out on bail and could end up committing the same crime again.
RENEW handles both domestic violence survivors and children and the official said that there is a correlation in between the two, as often when DV survivors open up they do say there were abused as children or had unstable abusive homes and so assumed it is okay to tolerate the abuse which leads from one bad choice to another.
What parents, schools and society can do
On advice for parents, schools and society to prevent abuse of children, the RENEW official said, “I find our Bhutanese parents are very trusting and casual about leaving their children behind with others. If they have to go somewhere and find it inconvenient to take the children, then they easily leave their children with family members, neighbours etc. I think we really need to learn that you cannot trust people with your children, including your own relatives.”
In terms of schools, she said that kids at the age of two and three are sent to day care, and here it is very important to teach good touch and bad touch, teach them to open up about their experiences and educate them on these issues.
When it comes to the public she said that people may be aware of a child being abused, but will not report it for fear of being seen as a ‘bad person’ by the neighbor or for the sake of family relationships.
The RBP official said that parents, schools and the public all have a role to play in keeping children safe.
He said that in between the Samarzingkha and Lungtenphu road there was a man who kept exposing himself indecently, but no member of the public came forward to report this to the police and ultimately the police had to find him and take action.
The RBP official said in Thimphu people stay in the same building but are not bothered about each other, and sometimes when crime is happening in front of them they just watch. He said to keep children safe the public has to be more vigilant and proactive.
“If you see a young girl or child sitting and crying, in distress or being followed by a suspicious person then help the child and call the police,” said the RBP official.
He said parents must also be careful where they send their children, and schools should not assume their responsibility is only within the campus, but also think out of the box to help improve the safety of their students.
