Touch me or touch me not. A very thin line divides the two sides of the issue so closely related to the girls in the tribal pockets. An awareness drive alone cannot help saving the physically or sexually abused ones unless they are ingrained with the ability to judge between good touch and bad touch.
With that in mind an effort had been initiated in the most interiors of Malkangiri district, otherwise more known once being a hub of Naxal extremism.
In addition, the load of literacy coupled with poverty which exacerbates the vulnerability of younger girls among the tribe.
The novel initiative was taken sometime back and now the results are encouraging. ‘Bada didi’ a concept which en-capsules the effort in order to arrest the menace of sexual abuse and awareness is a major weapon.
It is worthy of a mention here that, Odisha’s Tribal Empowerment & Awareness Mission (TEAM) spearheads the drive for an open platform for majority girls to speak their mind out to the large number of volunteers manning TEAM.
The ones who head the mission believe that, there is ‘nothing like a heart to heart with your Big sister for clearing up questions on awkward subjects’.
When in 2010 the menace of sexual abuse of tribal girls became a big concern, a motely number of women volunteers came forward to take up the cudgels against the ugly mind-set and played the navigating role in Malkangiri to rescue the girls from the cross-currents of illiteracy and ignorance (or lack of awareness).
Elder sisters or Bada Didi became the promontory for awareness through heart to heart exchange of fears and feelings related to improper physical intimacies.
Most of the volunteers of the TEAM being from the tribal communities, it came in handy for them to become open with the girls who otherwise rarely spoke their mind out. They were given the counselling on ‘good touch and bad touch’ and which to a great extent helped the volunteers to read into their minds.
TEAM started with about 27 volunteers, said Rama Krushna, its Secretary, with training programmes to tell them the ills about child marriage, hygiene, sanitation etc and significantly, the difference between good touch and bad touch.
The leader of the Big sisters made on the spot visits to start with and divided the tribal girls into two categories like the seniors and juniors which made it easy for the counsellors engaged.
It took several sittings with the young girls before they really opened up, recalls Deepa, a volunteer for TEAM.
The efforts paid the dividends and “slowly the girls have started to be vocal against any sexual advances” said one volunteer Radhika. The menace is so strongly rooted in that, it might take little time to be completely eliminated, she added.
