S1-Day 26: God in Dirty Places: ‘Childline 1098’

Intriguing line: “The world I love so much became a place of suffering and I want to run from here but I don’t know which way to turn. Help me to find a safe place to be myself”[1]

‘My story lives for Justice though I’m murdered.’

One fine Wednesday evening, I went to my friend’s house to play. I was happily playing with her outside the house until a man came and touched me. He grabbed me and ordered me to keep quiet. I obeyed him because he was my father’s friend, uncle Kachakla. He pulled down my shirt, forcefully injected his penis into my vagina, and tightly covered my mouth as I tried to scream. I experienced excruciating pain as he was penetrating forcefully. I tried to shove him and run away but I was too weak to match his strength. My ideal evening that day became a nightmare to me and my family as uncle Kachakla raped me and dumped my body into a deep gorge. My name is Rini (pseudo name). I am 6 years old girl from a Gomati district, Tripura. I am no more here today but I am everywhere.

(Case report was taken from mirrorsnownews.com. The report has already re-arranged in the form of story narrated by lost victim in order to express the pain and agony that had undergone by that little girl)

When people across the world are doing all they can to save lives during this pandemic by staying at home, another life, innocent and pure, is at the risk of being dirtied, polluted, and stained. The lockdown has helped families reconnect and rebuilt their relationship. It has even helped reboot parent-children time in many ways. Yet, for a lot many families, the lockdown has resulted in children sharing homes with their abuser/s. Several alarming reports state that a shocking number of cases of abuse were reported through the ‘CHILDLINE 1098’ helpline. According to the hindu.com/news reported that the helpline received 3.07 lakh calls from March 20-31, 2020 for children in distress across the country, and 30% were about protection against abuse and violence on children. If outdoors isn’t safe for children, indoors are no better. 

“Where was God?” and “What was God doing?” are questions that trouble everyone, even more the ones who have experienced sexual abuse. Though the Bible expresses God’s profound solidarity with victims of abuse, these questions and more point to something deep: the non-presence of God. Elise Harris (“Theologian, survivor argues that Jesus himself suffered sexual abuse,” in CRUX) viewed of Rocio Figueroa, a theologian and sexual abuse survivor too, on Jesus himself as a victim of sexual abuse. Figueroa says, “If we see Jesus in his human reality, and that he himself suffered sexual humiliation and he felt what a victim could feel, now that is powerful. He also felt ashamed in his body. He felt mocked, he felt vulnerable, (like) a victim feels when their body is exposed without respect.” Figueroa is referring to Jesus being stripped naked, tortured, and crucified as a form of sexual abuse. 

Sexual abuse or rape is not a sexual act, even if it involves sexual organs. To insert the penis, a symbol of power and manliness, into the vagina, often perceived to be “dirty” and “smelly,” is an act of power-over, an act of humiliation. It is a way of sustaining and reminding the one being abused, of their inferiority and powerlessness. However, I must state that penetration alone does not constitute abuse. Touching, silencing, and manipulation a victim also constitutes abuse. In child abuse, there is a clear imbalance of power, and one must always take that into account, irrespective of who the abuser is, or in what manner the child has been abused. 

To come to the question of the non-presence of God, Figueroa, from her own experience of abuse, states that viewing Jesus as a victim of sexual abuse was healing for her. She states, “When you’re in that crisis, you think that God abandoned you… So when you see that Jesus suffered, Jesus knows what I have lived, it’s a source of big consolation.” What this tells me is that Jesus, just like the children who are violated by horny men, is dirtied and defiled. When men violate and defile innocent bodies, they desecrate God’s body all over again. When little children are being sexually abused, betrayed, and ravaged, God is not absent: she is present in that valley of death crying, suffering, and experiencing the pain of being invaded along with the little children, the innocent victims. The question then is not whether God is in dirty places as much as whether God is being ‘dirtied’ (and “dirtied,” of course, is too simple a word). There is no ‘blood’ unjustly spilt that does not cry out for justice.

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Author: Hungreiphy ZAS

About the Author: Hungreiphy, a Tangkhul Naga from Manipur. Having completed her B.D. studies from Leonard Theological College, Jabalpur and M.Th. in History of Christianity from United Theological College, Bangalore, she currently works as a lecturer in the Department of History of Christianity at Yavatmal College for Leadership Training, Yavatmal Maharashtra.

 

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[1]Song lyrics “Safe Place (SATB Choir)” by James Kevin Gray.