If a child is in immediate danger, call Childline 1098. Free, 24×7.

Above all, the child.

India has been taught to protect many things before its children. We are here to change the order.

Send me the essays Read what we believe

More than half.

Of India's children will be sexually abused before they turn eighteen. Most by people their families know and trust. Most in their own homes. Most, no one will ever hear about.

India knows. India has been taught to protect other things first.

A family's name. A daughter's marriage. A son's manhood. The fear of what the neighbours will say. The silence that protects all of them.

We are here to change the order.

Kaaval makes work that crosses art forms and Indian languages. Short films, comic strips, posters, essays, public art, op-eds, WhatsApp tiles. The work is for every adult in a child's world.

  1. 01 The parent
  2. 02 The grandparent
  3. 03 The teacher
  4. 04 The neighbour
  5. 05 The shopkeeper
  6. 06 The driver who takes them home
  7. 07 The paediatrician
  8. 08 The village.

We change the order one phrase at a time.

the child the family's name
the child marriageability
the child manhood
the child silence

Above all, the child.

We are not here to shame India.

Shame is what the silence runs on.

We are here to make India proud of acting. Proud of being the kind of country, the kind of family, the kind of person who puts a child's safety above everything that has been put above it.

India has done this before.

None of these shifts were quick. None of them are finished. Each one began the day enough people decided to put one thing first.

  1. 1995 → 2014 India ended polio. House by house. Drop by drop. A generation of volunteers in pink vests at every railway platform until the last child was reached.
  2. 1989 → today Seatbelts became default. Not because we became cautious. Because we agreed, eventually, that a life is worth two seconds of friction.
  3. 1986 → today HIV became a public-health question, not a punishment. The shame moved. The conversation moved with it. The clinics filled. The funerals thinned.
  4. 2005 → today Domestic violence became everyone's business. Partly because the Act named it. Partly because someone, in some street, rang a bell.

Be the adult a child can come to.

You don't have to know everything to start. You don't have to have all the words. Three things are enough, in this order.

  1. Step 01 Listen. Without interrupting. Without correcting. Without filling silences with reassurance.
  2. Step 02 Believe. Children almost never lie about this. The thing they have just told you is the thing.
  3. Step 03 Call Childline 1098. Free, 24×7, in every state. They will do the next steps with you, not for you.

Be what you needed.

Above all, the child.

kāval, to watch over. From the Malayalam and the Tamil.
  • Latin
  • Malayalam
  • Hindi
  • Tamil
If you or a child you know
needs support
  • Childline 24×7, in every state, free. 1098
  • NCPCR POCSO e-Box Anonymous online reporting. ncpcr.gov.in
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