A Chennai-based NGO AWARE, which works to create awareness about human rights and gender equality, is using Sarahah application to answer queries on child sexual abuse and provide support to the survivors.
The Save The Smiles team deals with empowering children and raising awareness about child sexual abuse.
It all started on Independence Day, August 15, when the team started a Sarahah account (savethesmiles.Sarahah.com) and asked people to share their stories.
Soon they were flooded with queries.
One of the messages read – "My uncle groped me when I was 15 and my parents still don't know because I'm scared." Another message from a boy read he was "sexually assaulted by his neighbour" when he was 8 years old.
The team shared the messages on their Facebok page. They also uploaded literature for further guidance.
The NGO's founder Sandhiyan Thilgavathy told The News Minute they got the idea when they were conducting workshops and campaigns on child sexual abuse. He said most of the time people did have a lot of queries but were reluctant to ask due to the stigma surrounding the topic.
He said the response they received from feedback forms was way less compared to the Sarahah initiative. As of now, they have received 44 messages.
While Sandhiyan does agree that the anonymity factor might not allow them to check the authenticity of the messages but it is the least of his concerns as the sole aim of this initiative is to spread the word.
