Child abuse is grave and rampant in India. In 2007, the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development published the largest empirical study about the incidence of child abuse in India. The study specifically examined the prevalence of physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and girl child neglect in India. It found that two out of every three children were physically abused, over half the children reported having faced one or more forms of sexual abuse, and every second child reported facing emotional abuse. Despite these troubling statistics, the factors contributing to child abuse remain unaddressed.
Child abuse in India has been attributed to the structure and size of the family, lack of effective implementation of law, poverty, illiteracy, and even cultural factors. However, one crucial element that has been missing from the discourse on child protection in India is the link between victims of child abuse and animal cruelty, which we discuss here.
