Help prevent sexual abuse of children in India

It's the afternoon of November 16th, 2021. The third day of Child Safety Week had arrived, and the team at Arpan was hard at work putting out social media postings, resharing material, and ensuring that all events went off without a hitch. The receptionist answers the phone when it rings. On the other side, there was a mother who wanted to talk about Child Safety Week.

"Actually, I was idly reading through my social media pages when I came across some videos and posts titled #NowIsTheTime. I was surprised by the statistics on Child Sexual Abuse; I had no idea it was so rampant. You should know that I am a new mother. My child is only 1.5 years old, and I want to protect her. May you tell me a little more about the campaign and where I could acquire additional information?" she enquired.

She is just one of the many people who have benefited from all of the resourceful messages that we all jointly delivered during the Child Safety Week this year, and we should all be proud of that!

The third edition of Child Safety Week (November 14th to November 20th, 2021) was an action-packed week, with over 167 organisations and 15 significant personalities from India and around the world coming together to raise their voices and mainstream dialogues about Child Sexual Abuse (CSA). This is especially commendable given that the world was not only still dealing with the virus but was also digitally exhausted.

"What was the eventual outcome of all these efforts?" you might wonder. Well, we reached over 12 million people - these are people who heard our core messages and were made aware of the subject of Child Sexual Abuse in some way!  A summary is given below and a detailed report can be found HERE.

Some of the highlights this year were:

•  The campaign #NowIsTheTime - this distinctive hashtag emphasised the importance of talking to our children about 'personal safety' now more than ever.
•  A clear call-to-action that urged parents, teachers and adult care-givers to educate themselves and their children so they have the knowledge and skills to recognize and respond to unsafe situations.
•  A well-curated Resources Page that allowed parents, teachers and adult care-givers to access age-appropriate modules created by leading organisations from across the globe. Modules were available in English, Filipino, Spanish, Hindi, Marathi, Malayalam and Tamil languages.
• Participation from India's leading celebrity influencers like Vidya Balan, Hiten Tejwani, Tara Sharma Saluja, Onir & JD Majethia.
• Other Influencers who passionately participated to raise the decibel through their networks were Dr. Zoya Ali Rizvi (Deputy Commissioner, National Health Mission, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, GoI), Dr. Nachiket Mor (Visiting Scientist, The Banyan Academy of Leadership in Mental Health), Dr. Daniela Ligiero (ED & CEO at Together For Girls) and Dr. Swati Popat Vats, (President, Early Childhood Association).
• The voices of Harish Iyer, Tanuja Sodhi, Lokesh Pawar and Purnima Govindarajulu, who are adult survivors of Child Sexual Abuse, brought life and emotion to all our communication.
• Popular parenting influencer Riddhi Deora and India's famous puppeteer & ventriloquist Satyajit Padhye also lent their support.
• Re-sharing of our content by actor Pratik Gandhi, director Sujoy Ghosh and the Commissioner of Police (Mumbai) gave us millions of more eyeballs.
• Child Safety Week was taken up and observed by various government departments at the local, state and national level - we know of at least 13 Indian states where activities were observed.
• Hundreds of online and offline activities were conducted by NGOs, Corporates, Communities and Schools across India.
• Leading media houses covered Child Safety Week through the initiatives led by our partners.

Thank you to all of our donors, partners and movement builders for helping to make Child Safety Week 2021 a big success! We look forward to your continued support and efforts beyond Child Safety Week so that we may all work together to make the world a safer place for children.

Best Wishes,

Team Child Safety Week

Arpan