‘The media must start dealing with the whys of sexual violence, not just the what’
Filmmaker and activist Insia Dariwala on why raising awareness about male sexual abuse can help solve the larger problem of rape in India.
Boys and men get a raw deal as survivors of sexual assault, and at the same time not enough is understood about them as perpetrators. Filmmaker and activist Insia Dariwala is determined to change the status quo on both fronts. Best known for her short films The Candy Man, which tackles the issue of male sexual abuse, and Cock-Tale, which explores the creation of a rapist, Dariwala has been a long-time campaigner for gender-neutral laws and for making child abuse interventions more inclusive.
Her aim, she says, is to use the power of storytelling and the visual arts to stir conversations, destigmatize victims, and to understand why sexual violence is such a big problem in India. Her campaigns have led the government to commission a major study of male survivors of sexual abuse, with one of the aims being to seek answers to a particularly thought-provoking question: if more than 50% of children, about half of them being boys, experience something sexually traumatising in their early years, are they more likely to contribute to an atmosphere of sexual violence?
In this conversation with NewsTracker, she talks about the importance of visual mediums to build awareness, why she doesn’t support the death penalty, and how the media should also start asking the questions that she explores in her work: why do rapes happen? What makes a rapist? What can we do differently?
What led you to make films about sexual abuse and become an activist?
I studied advertising and mass communication in New York and then returned to India, where I focused on scripting and writing. I made my first film, The Candy Man, in 2009, which is about a young man who must confront the sexual abuse from his childhood.
While doing that film I faced a lot of my own demons as well because I am a survivor of child sexual abuse too. The film was my own catharsis, but while writing it I also came across many other survivors — not just girls but also boys. That changed my perspective on child sexual abuse quite a bit. For the longest time I was thinking of men as villains in this, but I realized that even boys are victims.
I REALIZED THERE IS A CORRELATION BETWEEN UNRESOLVED TRAUMA IN BOYS WHO HAVE BEEN AFFECTED BY SEXUAL ABUSE AND VIOLENCE TOWARDS WOMEN AND CHILDREN.
When The Candy Man was released in 2009, it generated a lot of impact, and the impact was mostly on men. This was the first time in India that someone had shown a boy as a survivor, and it started a lot of dialogue on male child sexual abuse. I subsequently delved deeper into the subject because I knew that there was more to be done on the ground as well.
During that process, I made another film called Cock-Tale, post the Nirbhaya case of 2012. It was about the genesis of a rapist — how we as a society give birth to rapists — and it set the foundation for my activism. The film won a few awards and travelled across India. Many men approached me and started talking about how we as a society shape rapists. I was hearing it so often, straight from the horse’s mouth, that I became acutely aware of the work that needs to be done. I thought it was high time that I start doing something about it.
My first workshop was with children in Haryana, after the film was screened in Delhi. I went in to educate 1500 kids in school and that’s when the gravity of the situation really hit. So much sexual abuse and rape is happening because of deep-rooted mindsets that will take a long time and a lot of effort to change.
When I returned to Mumbai, I started doing workshops with children very often. I would go and educate the kids and the parents about sexual abuse. Since 2014, I have reached 6000–7000 children and have also trained a lot of adults. I just came back from Vijaywada where I trained 42 cops about gender sensitization and how to handle child sexual abuse.
How do you think films help in generating awareness about sexual violence?
In this journey, starting with The Candy Man, what I have realized is the power of storytelling, and the visual medium. In 2017, after the two films, I got the opportunity to put up an installation on child sexual abuse at the Kala Ghoda Art Festival. The installation was titled ‘Betrayed’ and it was viewed by about 1–1.5 lakh people in less than nine days. What it did for us was to start a dialogue–whoever was visiting the installation was also learning about the seriousness of the issue and many people showed interest in knowing more.
I AM ASKING FOR LAWS THAT ARE GENDER NEUTRAL. SEXUAL ABUSE IS A CHILD RIGHTS ISSUE — YOU CANNOT LOOK AT IT JUST THROUGH THE LENS OF GENDER.
I became aware that if I use the visual medium to reach people, the impact would be quicker and bigger. Taking that thought forward I started running a program called YSR (Your Social Responsibility) in which I interact with students from art colleges. I roped in students from Pearl Academy and gave them a script. We created a puppetry animation video about sexual violence and children. It engages with and speaks to children — in Hindi — directly. When kids are young it’s very difficult to reach them and educate them on these issues, and there are not many films that they can understand.
Why did you choose to focus on male child sexual abuse?
Last year, as I started working more and more in the space, I realized that there is a correlation between unresolved trauma in boys who have been affected by sexual abuse and violence towards women and children. To further dig into that I petitioned the government last year — it was to Maneka Gandhi — for a study on male child sexual abuse. I strongly feel that the past holds the answers we need to combat sexual abuse in India. Unless we don’t fix the past, for boys especially, we can’t fix our present and future.
THE PAST HOLDS THE ANSWERS WE NEED TO COMBAT SEXUAL ABUSE IN INDIA. UNLESS WE DON’T FIX THE PAST, FOR BOYS ESPECIALLY, WE CAN’T FIX OUR PRESENT AND FUTURE.
To give a little more momentum to this goal, I started a photo campaign. This was for the first time in India that we had a campaign with male child sexual abuse survivors. If we look at the statistics, millions of boys are sexually abused in India today — but only five came forward to lend their faces to the campaign. But it still generated interest. It’s as if I had opened a Pandora’s box — every channel, every newspaper wanted to talk about it and to know more.
Your campaign resulted in a positive response from the government…
We gained a lot of mileage with the campaign and within less than two months we gathered close to 89,000 signatures on the petition to Maneka Gandhi. When that happened I was invited by her to bring evidence to what I was trying to prove. Now, I don’t have a degree in the social sciences or training on how to use research methodology, but I do know a lot of survivors, and I know what a survivor goes through because of my own experience.
So, I put together a survey that I ran on my petition online. There were 160 male respondents, and my hypothesis was supported with evidence — more than 7% said that they do have the urge to hurt someone because of what had happened to them.
IF FIVE FACES [OF SURVIVORS] CAN CHANGE THE LEGISLATION, CAN YOU IMAGINE WHAT 50 FACES CAN DO?
When the government saw this pilot study, they asked me to lead an all-India study on male child sexual abuse. The aim, though, is to not just study male sexual abuse — there are many studies on it already. My aim is that once the data is collected, we will ask experts to analyze it and with their findings we will develop creative prevention modules to arrest the issue. So, we plan to generate a lot of creative ICT (information and communication technology) materials. This means short films, public service announcements, drawing tools and a lot of different forms of art designed to act like an intervention with children and adults.
What has the impact of your campaigns and petitions been in the legal sphere?
Because of the last campaign, April onwards there have been changes in the legislation regarding boys and sexual abuse. We got the compensation to become gender neutral — before, it was just for girls.
We are also looking to change the laws where for the rape of boys the punishments are different. Section 377 of the law (under which male victims can try to seek justice) is very contested — you should not convict anybody in that law because it may result in the victim getting punished too. If a boy is raped by a man, both might get punished under Section 377.
In addition, we are lobbying about the recent law that was made in which a rapist can get the death penalty if the victim is a girl under the age of 12. What about boys? Boys are being raped too!
I am asking for laws that are gender neutral. Sexual abuse is a child rights issue– you cannot look at it just through the lens of gender.
If five faces can change the legislation, can you imagine what 50 faces can do? I want to have survivors join the campaign as this will help remove the stigma attached to them. Even if laws are put in place, nothing is going to change unless people feel confident about reporting what happened to them. People don’t report the sexual abuse or rape of their children because they are afraid of how society will react.
My goal is to do this campaign and bring out people from isolation — so that the issue is normalized and the victims aren’t burdened with shame and guilt.
What are some of the challenges you have faced in this journey?
Just being surrounded by something like this is a challenge. It is quite disturbing. Being a survivor, sometimes I also get triggered and it is not easy dealing with that. But the bigger challenge is changing mindsets on the ground.
INSTEAD OF JUST SAYING THAT A CHILD WAS RAPED AND GIVING GRAPHIC DETAILS, JOURNALISTS NEED TO ASK, “WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?”
The minute you start talking about it, people get uncomfortable. They don’t want to hear about it. It is looked at as something very dark, no one wants to tread into it. This is a huge problem. Many times the parents I meet don’t want to look at it. They think their children will get over it because it happened when they were very young. Unfortunately, not many realize that the child might never get over it and that it is something that they might carry for the rest of their lives. The only thing that might change is the intensity of it and over time they may make peace with it.
Also, a lot of people hesitate to speak out because they are scared about what kind of stigma is going to get attached to them or what society will say. My goal is to remove the attached stigma. The more we normalize the conversation around it, the less stigma there will be.
How do you think media can contribute to the conversation on sexual abuse?
I call the media a double-edged sword. Honestly, if it had not been for the media my cause wouldn’t have gotten so much momentum. The media is very instrumental today in reporting cases. We only know about them because the media reports on them. However, the danger is that the media is sometimes not as sensitive as it should be in terms of how it views and reports on this issue — the conversation needs to change.
I THINK KILLING A RAPIST IS LOSING OUT ON A VERY GOOD CHANCE TO UNDERSTAND WHY RAPES ARE HAPPENING.
The headline always mentions the victim — “3 year old raped” or “4 year old raped” or “16 year old raped” — but I never see headlines saying “70-year-old man raped so-and-so…” I think the way we narrate the story needs to change today. We need to change the focus from the victim to the perpetrator. The media cannot use a child or a woman just to sensationalise their article. They need to understand why they are reporting the case.
In my opinion, they need to approach the conversation in a way where they are creating a space for people to ask questions. I don’t think the media needs to judge or do moral policing, they need to evoke emotions in the reader. For example, instead of just saying that a child was raped and giving graphic details, journalists need to ask, “Why is this happening?” When you start asking those whys — say, why did the person who heard the screams choose not to go to the cops? — a lot of answers will be triggered, which perhaps society needs to know.
Do you support the death penalty for rapists?
I don’t support the death penalty because I don’t believe that killing the criminal will kill the crime. There needs to be punishment, but death is the easy way out. Post this study that I will be doing, I want to study rapists to understand what makes them do this. There itself we will find a lot of answers and that will give us insights on prevention.
I think killing a rapist is losing out on a very good chance to understand why rapes are happening. Punish them, give them a life term, but I don’t support the death penalty. Rehabilitation also is a vast term, I wouldn’t use that. For rapists who have done a lot of damage I would not bother to rehabilitate them, but I would try to study them.
