Why children stay silent: the question India must ask in the Veeramani abuse case

The probe into the child sexual abuse case against Tamil Nadu granite baron R Veeramani is widening, with a special investigation team set to question many people to establish what happened and who else may have been involved. But amid the outrage and headlines, one question has gone largely unasked — and it is not about the accused.

"A question very few seem to ask is why the children did not tell anyone about the abuse for years," the article argues. Society tends to approach child sexual abuse from the adult's end — the act, the motive, the monster — when abuse is often less a dramatic moment of violence than a slow process of making a child vulnerable to silence.

Understanding grooming and silence

Prevention experts call this process grooming: manipulating a child's trust, testing boundaries, identifying vulnerabilities, and gradually making the child feel that what is happening is normal, secret, or somehow their responsibility. That imposed sense of responsibility is one reason disclosure so often becomes difficult.

Unicef and the WHO identify fear, shame, stigma, threats, family loyalty and the child's relationship with the person involved among the barriers to disclosure. The article suggests reframing the question from "Why didn't the child tell someone?" to "What was it about the child's world that made telling someone so difficult?"

Children may fear being disbelieved — or blamed. They may fear speaking out will break up their family, especially when the abuser is a family member. Some lack the vocabulary to describe what happened. If the abuser is someone they trust or depend on, disclosure can feel like betrayal. And where adults have taught that matters of sex are shameful and never discussed, silence becomes the norm even when a child feels violated and hurt.

The role of bystanders

The piece stresses that bystander intervention is crucial. Bystanders need not be witnesses to an assault — they can be parents, teachers, relatives, friends, neighbours or colleagues who notice changes in a child's behaviour or discomfort around someone. Intervention is not always questioning: it can mean creating opportunities for the child to talk, saying "You can tell me anything", noticing when boundaries are being crossed, refusing to dismiss a child's discomfort, and, when a concern is raised, taking it seriously and connecting the child to professional support. An insensitive intervention, the author warns, can itself cause further harm.

Watch the language, support the child

The article also criticises the language routinely used — describing children as "damaged", "destroyed" or "scarred for life" — which, alongside some media imagery, can add to a child's distress. While childhood sexual abuse can have profound and lasting consequences, it need not become the definition of a person's life. Similarly, reducing perpetrators to the label "predator" may offer moral distance, but it does little to help understand grooming, prevent abuse or support a child. Statistically, the article notes, we may all know one or more abusers without knowing it.

WHO guidance stresses empathetic, child-centred responses that prioritise safety, choices and the child's autonomy. The harder task, the author writes, is to look at the child: "What does the child need now? Safety, care, professional support and, above all, the assurance that what happened was not their fault."

The Veeramani case has shocked everyone, and there will be investigations, questions, arrests, court proceedings and, hopefully, accountability. But the closing question lingers: "When the headlines fade and everyone else has finished being shocked, what happens to the child?"

Disclaimer: Views expressed above are the author's own.