When I was around 12 years old, I witnessed my 5 year old cousin suffer abuse from his mother's boyfriend. My cousin had bruises and burns on his body. The boyfriend would also beat my aunt. This is a form of violence. It was hid in the beginning. My aunt would not come around the family at first. The family started to become suspicious, so they would visit her. Once everything came out about what was going on, my cousin was taken away and given to foster parents. My aunt's boyfriend went to jail. My cousin had several surgeries for the burns on his body. We were able to see him some years later and his mom could too. My cousin is all grown-up now. He and his mother has a strained relationship. He said she didn't love him and allowed that to happen to him. He still says she doesn't love him. I think this was emotional and physical stress. I've seen him interact with his children and he shows them plenty of love. I'm glad he was able to love although he feels his mother didn't, and still doesn't, love him.
Females in India are targeted for violence more than boys. Some are beaten, raped, or killed. Sons are preferred over girls, the girls are looked upon as liabilities. This abuse comes from parents and other people in society. They are incapable of coping with anger, frustration, and stress in life, so they vent their stress on children. These stresses are physical, mental, and emotional. There has been an organization put in place in India to protect the children from any type of violence. No one, especially an innocent child, should have to suffer abuse. This can affect the development of a child in many ways. The child may grow up and become abusive them self.
Brenda,
ReplyDeleteReading about your cousin's abuse was saddening and insightful. His development was affected biosocially and pyschosocially. Even though he loves his children today, it stills seems he has some emotional scars from what happened to him as a child because he hasn't mended his relationship with his mom. It causes me to wonder exactly how he is affected as an adult because of his developmental issue in this area from childhood. A stressor such as domestic violence or child abuse is hard to deal with for many because even though countries or communities provide assistance it is always up to the people being abuse to accept the help and in many cases this might not happen. I think there should be more support that educates parents on how abuse whether received by them or their children can drastically affect development of children.
Cherri
Brenda,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing a personal story with us. It must be so hard to watch a family fall apart and for a child to go to foster home despite having a parent. The silver lining is that your cousin is able to lead a normal parental life for his children. Kudos to that!
The gender bias in India has reached new heights unfortunately. You must have recently seen in the news about the rape incident in the capital of the country. The treacherous thing is that many children <3 years are also victims of this heinous crime. India is battling with this problem and there will be many cases that we will never know about. However, many parents are realizing the potential of good upbringing irrespective of gender and the cities are seeing great improvement in how women are treated. This has unfortunately given birth to a vicious cycle of contempt in poorly educated men who inflict pain and suffering onto women. This has to stop and the nation is coming together to do their best and to reduce corruption and to seek justice. We have a long way to go!!!
Divya