"Child Molestation." What comes to your mind when you hear these words? Shock? Disgust? Sadness...? But if you're a victim, a whole host of other words come to mind. Shame. Pain. Guilt. Hatred... And victims there are many. According to a report by UNICEF, almost 53% of children in India face sexual abuse of some kind at least once in their lives. That means almost 1 in 2 Indians have been molested or worse, raped as children. Wrap your mind around that. The most disgusting thing about child sex abuse is that in most cases, the perpetrator is known to the victim. And the most horrifying fact about it is that most perpetrators have no set gender, age or criminal history. Anyone could be a monster. We wanted to show just how prevalent this heinous crime is in our country. So, we reached out to friends and acquaintances across India and asked them to anonymously share their own stories. And share they did. We received dozens of horrifying accounts of child sexual abuse from many scarred adults. We are sharing some of them with you. Their stories will leave you in a cold sweat.

These days brushing keeps happening. We women have got used to it. But this one incident was more than just brushing. I was around 17 and had just come back from school. I was in Class 11.

I had almost reached home when a stranger came up to me and said something. Sensing that his intentions were bad, I ignored him and quickened my footsteps. He followed me and said, “Chut degi.” (Will you fuck me?) Terrified, I ran upstairs to my place. He followed and quickly grabbed me from my back. I shouted at the top of my voice, after which he ran. I thought of teaching him a lesson and ran after him, but he had gone. I was left in pieces.

We were visiting some old family friends for dinner. My brother and I were really excited when we went to his room and found out that he had a video game console. We wanted to play but he had other things on his mind. He took us out for walk to an abandoned building nearby, took us up the steps and started talking about incredibly depraved sexual acts. We were really small and had no clue what he was talking about, so all we did was laugh. We got back home and he took us to his room, to “play video games.” There, he stripped and molested us. No one ever found out.

I am now a 28 year old man. And my blood boils in shame and horror whenever I think about what happened to me. All I can do now is pray that it doesn’t happen to anyone else.