Sexual Violence Prevention- Adolescent Against Sexual Assault Session

It’s very important in today’s day and age for every girl to be aware about her surrounding and what resonates to sexual harassment. To aid this; we conducted a session on sexual harassment for 50 of our LSE girls beneficiaries with respect to health and legal aspects, possible ways to take care of oneself during such situations and to also clear their doubts; if any.

The Resource Person for this event was Adv. Sandip Shinde (UNICEF Consultant) who explained the girls about the legal procedures and Ms. Jyoti Kamble (Manager-Reality Gives) to cover health aspects related to sexual harassment.

The girls were first shown a documentary called ‘Komal’ on sexual harassment as nothing provides a wider scope of understanding than a visual representation.

The topics covered under this session were-

• My body; My rights
• Safe touch, what it is?
• Who are abusers?
• Learn to say “No”
• Psychological impact of sex abuse
• Role of parents and others
• Juvenile Justice Act 2000 (JJ Act 2000)
• Prevention Of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012 (POCSO Act 2012)

The resource persons not just explained the topics but also gave references of their personal experiences with a show of facts and figures making the talk even more relatable and understandable. They were explained about the laws for children and in India; their provisions and benefits.

This session proved extremely beneficial for the girls as they were now aware of different laws and Acts, how to react if stuck in a compromising situation.

Their feedback is what makes these sessions fruitful and allows us to further provide the information they need to back themselves up for the future. Here’s what they had to say-

“It is the first time we are having such a discussion in an open environment allowing us to express our concerns and questions in a safe place. We were unaware about laws like JJ Act 2000 and POCSO Act 2012, but now we have basic understanding about these laws which will only prove to be beneficial for us”.

As part of Life Skill Empowerment-Girls Project after this session girls will be more confident and aware about harassment. This confidence and awareness created in the girls fulfils our project objective to strengthen and develop capacities of adolescent girls.

In the continuation of this session Future Smiles is going to organize a Civil Defence session for the girls wherein they will learn methods of Self Defence and how to give First Aid.