Flyers to prevent child abuse released

CHENNAI: “No one can touch me and ask me to keep it a secret. I must keep telling till someone helps stop the secret touching. My body belongs to me.” These are some of the messages printed on the personal safety flyer on ‘Smart Ways to keep myself safe’ that were released on Wednesday .These flyer focus on equipping a child, especially a differently-abled child, in the event of a sexual abuse, an initiative of Tulir - Centre for Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse, in partnership with Vidhyasagar.At the launch of the flyer, Kannagi Packianathan, secretary to the Department for the Welfare of Differently-abled Persons, said: “It is shocking to note that we hear cases of children, especially the differently-abled, being subject to abuses. I think it is the responsibility of the adult to ensure and educate the children to protect them and prevent such abuses from happening.”Vidhya Reddy of Tulir said: “It is really sad that differently-abled children are four times more exposed to sexual abuse than the others. Unfortunately, society often treats differently-able children as asexual and in the guise of protecting them, we keep them least informed about their sexuality, making them more vulnerable to abuse.“ They are also available in Braille and in black and yellow for the low vision kids.