How to talk to your 10-year-old about rape

For me to talk to my children about rape, I must also understand and explain that young children are especially vulnerable to sexual abuse. My children, both boys, are as much at risk as any little girl. Since I cannot be at their side to protect them all the time, I must remind them that nobody can touch them — nor can they ever touch anybody — without explicit consent. Whether it’s a friendly pat on the head or far more, if they don’t like it, they have the right to say “no”. And if they don’t like it, they must come and tell me about it as soon as possible. Children understand the concept of consent, so I have to remind them that they need to respect someone else’s physical space and also demand it for themselves.

Last year, when I was pregnant with our second child, I had to talk to my seven-year old son about female foeticide, because he asked me why we couldn’t find out whether his sibling was to be a boy or a girl. I explained to him, with some bitterness, that we live in a society where little girls are not even allowed to be born. Where baby girls are killed, there is neither respect, nor love for women of any age. And a society which doesn’t care for its women, falls apart sooner than later. Children are not too young to consider the implications of this, especially young ones whose mothers are still firmly at the centre of their universe. Above all, I must help my child understand and remember that there is never any justification for sexual violence. That nobody ever “asks for it”.

Sunayana Roy is a Kolkata-based theatreperson and a mother to two boys