“Most of the child abusers are habitual offenders who are likely to repeat the offence. So, when the system allows such people to escape, we are providing them another chance to sexually abuse children. The conviction rates in child sexual abuse cases are low in Chennai even after the enactment of the Prevention of Child Sexual Offences Act,” a ChildLine source said. 

Many cases go unreported as children are too scared to come out in the open and complain. The school-level vigilance committees have not been effective in bringing out such offences as they are more worried about losing the reputation of schools. Moreover, many of the abusers are known persons or relatives of the victims which prevents them from reporting such offences. 

In the last four months alone, there were seven cases of child sexual abuse in Chennai and five of them were rape cases. From April 2015 to March 2016, there were 27 cases of child sexual abuse, including 10 rape cases. 

As per ChildLine data, physical torture of children is also very much prevalent in the city. ChildLine received 96 complaints of physical torture of children from April 2015 to March 2016, and in the last four months there had been 26 such complaints. This excludes cases of corporate punishment meted out to students at school.