Role of counselors in Child Sexual Abuse under POCSO Act 2012


The counsellor‟s duties will include:

i) To understand the child's physical and emotional state

ii) To resolve trauma and foster healing and growth

iii) To hear the child's version of the circumstances leading to the concern

iv) To respond appropriately to the child when in crisis

v) To provide counselling, support, and group-based programs to children referred to them

vi) To improve and enhance the child‟s overall personal and social development, and
his/her health and wellbeing

vii) To facilitate the reintegration of the child into his/her family/ community

Counselling for children and families at risk is an integral component of the Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS). ICPS is a governmental program implemented by the Government Of India to help secure the safety of children, with a special emphasis on children in need of care and protection, juveniles in conflict or contact with the law and other vulnerable children. The ICPS
envisages the development of a cadre of counsellors to provide professional counselling
services under various components of the scheme. Counselling may be provided under ICPS
by any of the following:

i) CHILDLINE Service

ii) Counsellors appointed by the District Child Protection Society, who will report to the
Legal-cum-Probation Officer and will be responsible for providing counselling support
to all children and families coming in contact with the DCPS

iii) NGOs and other voluntary sector organisations- In all cases of penetrative sexual assault and all aggravated cases, arrangements should be made as far as possible to ensure that the child is provided counselling support. Where a counsellor is not available within the existing ICPS framework, the State Government may secure the engagement of external counsellors on contract basis.

In order to enable the engagement of counsellors from outside the ICPS, including senior
counsellors for the more aggravated cases, the DCPU in each district shall maintain a list of
persons who may be appointed as counsellors to assist the child. These could include mental
health professionals employed by Government or private hospitals and institutions, as well as
NGOs and private practitioners outside the ICPS mechanism, chosen on the basis of
objective criteria.

As indicative criteria, for any counsellor engaged to provide services to a sexually abused
child, a graduate degree, preferably in Sociology/ Psychology (Child Psychology)/ Social
Work is a must. In addition to this, at least 2 to 3 years of work experience related to
providing counselling services to children in need of care and protection as well as their
parents and families and training on handling cases of child sexual abuse is essential in order
to ensure that the child receives counselling from those qualified for and experienced in
providing it.

How to respond if the child discloses abuse

i) Believe him or her. The most important thing is to believe the child. Children rarely
lie about abuse; what is more common is a child denying that abuse happened when it
did. Tell the child you believe him/her.

ii) Don’t be emotionally overwhelmed and try to remain composed while talking to
the child.

iii) Do not interrogate the child. It can be traumatic for the child to repeat his/her story numerous times. Leave the questioning to the legal and police personnel.

iv) Reassure the child that the abuse is not their fault. The child's greatest fear is that
he or she is responsible for the abuse. Be sure to make it clear that what happened is
not a result of anything he/she did or did not do. This is particularly important when
the accused person is a member of the child‟s family, such as his or her father, and the
child feels guilty at having put that person to trouble.

v) Do not make promises you can’t keep. Do not make promises such as the child
will never have to see the abuser again, that nothing will change, or other such

vi) Believing and supporting the child are two of the best actions to start the healing process. Appropriate and helpful responses to disclosures are as follows:
a) “I am glad you told me, thank you for trusting me.”
b) “You are very brave and did the right thing.”
c) “It wasn‟t your fault.”

The counsellor should be aware that the effects of child sexual abuse are long-term and can
change the world view and the course of life of the child. The first step in the healing process is
for the child to talk about the abuse, and it is the counsellor‟s duty to facilitate this; however, the
process of recovery may be long and the child will have other needs that the counsellor can
attend to such as collecting information, building rapport, supporting family members of the victim, arranging for other support services, sex education and normalizing the child's behavior.

свернуть