Who Will Run the House

• 1098Child Helpline. Any worry about a child’s safety, day or night, even if you are not sure what it means.
• 112Emergency. Someone is hurt or threatened now, or the person shares the home and you cannot keep the child away.

The child has told, and the house has gone quiet. The child is asleep, or lying still and pretending to be, and you are standing in the kitchen with the month’s figures in your head. The rent is due on the fifth. The school fees fall due before the new term, and the loan instalment comes out of the same salary as the gas and the milk.

The person the child named is the one that salary comes from.

In 2024 the police in India recorded 3,658 cases of penetrative sexual assault on a child in which the accused was a member of the child’s own family. Those are only the cases someone reported. Each of them had a house around it, and often somebody in a kitchen doing a sum like yours.

You want two things tonight, and both of them are right. You want a house that holds, with the children fed and the fees paid. You want the child safe. Wanting the first does not make you small or selfish.

You may not have told anyone yet. Even so, you can already hear the question the family will ask, in the voice of an elder at the door or a relative on the phone from another city. Ghar kaun chalayega? Who will run the house?

Before the house fills with voices, there is one thing to do tonight: call 1098 from a phone no one at home can check. What to say is further down.

What running a house has always meant

Once the call is made, the house will fill with voices. An elder will say that he has a wife and children to think of, and a relative that the child must have misunderstood. Someone kind will say, quietly, think of the other children. People who work with families in India describe the same pattern again and again. Other relatives tend to disbelieve the child. Nimisha Srivastava of Counsel to Secure Justice has said that when the person is the one who earns, the child is often blamed for the loss of that wage.

The child hears all of it. A child in this house may want the hurting to stop and still love the person who did it. Some children later say that they should never have told. If the adults spend the first weeks counting money out loud, the child can hear each sum as a bill with their own name on it.

In Hindi, one verb holds both halves of a home. A man who ghar chalata hai earns for it. A woman who ghar chalati hai runs it, from the meals and the medicines to the hundred small choices that keep children fed and well. When the family asks who will run the house, they mean only the first. You have been doing the second all along.

Running a house, in either sense, has always meant keeping the children in it safe and fed. That is what a wage was for. It paid for the rice and the school shoes so that the children could grow up well inside these walls. That job is now yours to steer, and the law has some help to give you while you do it. Nobody is asking you to earn a salary’s worth with your own two hands. You can read more about when the family says keep it at home.

There is research on mothers in this position, most of it from the US. A parent at home who stands with the child is one of the strongest signs that the child will recover well. When that parent does not stand with them, children are more likely to take back what they said.

The same research found that mothers in this place are often torn, between grief for the child and fear for the money and the house. One study found that mothers who felt deeply torn often stood by their child all the same. You do not need to feel certain or calm to be the person this child needs. You need to stay on the child’s side, torn or not.

What to say when you call

The plan is short. Keep the child beside you tonight, and read what to do tonight if you have not yet. Then call 1098 from a phone that the person and the household cannot check, and say the few sentences below.

Before the call, be careful about who you tell. Do not confront the person, or tell them you know. Tell one other adult only if you are sure they will not warn the person. If you are unsure, call 1098 first. In a joint family, that includes his parents, and his brothers and their wives. If a parent might warn the person, or is the person, call 1098 first and do not tell them.

If you have to use a shared phone, give 1098 a safe number and delete the call from the log. Ask them to call back only on the safe number. They may still call the number you used, so keep that phone with you tonight. What happens when you call 1098 has more.

When they answer, you can say: The person lives with us. I am keeping the child with me and away from him. The house runs on his income, so we will need help with food and fees. Saying this on the first call lets the people who come know it early. The committee is where it counts, so say it again there.

By law, 1098 must pass a report of sexual abuse to the police. Someone will follow up, and they may come to the house where he and his family live. Ask 1098 how and when anyone will come, and tell them when he is usually home. If he is there and you cannot keep the child away tonight, call 112.

The Child Welfare Committee is a district panel that must make sure the child is safe and cared for. If the accused lives with the child, the child goes before the committee within 24 hours, and it decides within three days where they stay. The committee must weigh whether a parent can care for and protect the child, and the need for the child to stay with family. It can still place the child elsewhere for a time, and that is reviewed. A parent who comes, believes the child and has a plan for where they will sleep makes that less likely.

The committee cannot remove the accused from the house. That comes from arrest, bail conditions, or a residence order under the Domestic Violence Act. If he is still in the house and you cannot keep the child away from him, call 112, and read the lines on your own safety at the end of this section.

Go to the hearing yourself. Say your plan for the child first, and say honestly where the child will sleep: I will keep the child with me and away from him. If he has left or been taken away, say He is not in the house now. If you have moved, say We are staying at my mother’s. This is where we will stay. If he is still in the house, say that too, and ask what the committee needs from you to keep the child safe. What happens at the committee walks through the hearing.

Then, as a separate request, ask for help: While this goes on, we will need help with food and fees. Can the committee recommend it? The committee can recommend emergency help with food and other needs, and can put the child forward for the sponsorship scheme that helps with school costs. This help exists to be asked for.

You do not need anyone’s permission to call 1098, and you need no papers or money to make the call. If you are not safe either, call 181, the Women Helpline. If he or his family threaten you, cut off money or try to put you out of the home, a Magistrate can order him to stay away, let you stay in the home, and pay your costs. A Magistrate is a judge, and a free legal aid lawyer or the Protection Officer can help you apply. Who pays for what has the rest.

What help with money exists

None of this is quick or certain, and none of it replaces a wage. This is what exists, roughly in the order a family meets it, and where each part falls short.

The committee can also recommend emergency help with food, clothes and travel, and that help should be paid within a week of its recommendation. If you want your own lawyer and cannot afford one, the Legal Services Authority must give you one free.

A support person is a person assigned by the Child Welfare Committee and paid by the government, who stays with your family through the police and court steps. The committee can assign one only if you and the child agree. Many families are never offered one. Ask in writing, and ask again. If no one is named, the district child protection team (the District Child Protection Unit, DCPU) or a free legal aid lawyer can help you ask.

Some children qualify for Rs 4,000 a month under the government’s Mission Vatsalya sponsorship. Ask the district child protection team (DCPU) or the committee whether the child qualifies. The children it lists include those who have been abused and need support to recover, and those whose mother has been abandoned by her family.

The Domestic Violence Act is the route that can keep a wage reaching the house. If any of what is described above happens, the Magistrate can also order him to pay. That can include support for you and the children. If he does not pay what the Magistrate orders, the Magistrate can direct his employer to pay part of his wages to you. This works only while he still earns a wage, and a man held in custody may have none. Ask the free legal aid lawyer when to apply for money; the timing can matter to the child’s case. The application can ask for support for your children too, even if he is not their father.

Separately, if he is your husband or the children’s father and has an income or property, a Magistrate can order him to pay monthly support.

The Special Court, a court for child sexual abuse cases, can order interim compensation for the child at any stage after the police register the case. It often takes months to arrive. HAQ, a child rights group in Delhi, found that it took three to six months in most cases it followed. Studies of 2,788 Special Court judgments from five states, from before the 2020 Rules, found interim compensation ordered in only one. The court can also order final compensation even if the accused is acquitted or never found. The state must pay it within 30 days of receiving the order, though in practice it is often late. If the court awards the child money, the committee can help open a bank account for the child. Ask the committee for special relief under Rule 8 of the POCSO Rules 2020, for food, clothes and travel. Name the rule, because lawyers in Maharashtra say many offices do not know it.

Until any of this arrives, many families get by because one relative carries them for a while: a month’s rent from a sister, a bed at a mother’s house. If there is no one, tell the committee and the free legal aid lawyer that too, so they know what your family has to work with. Read when the family opens its door, and see the full list of who pays for what.

When the pressure turns to the child

Once the earner is out of the house, some of the pressure moves from you to the child. A relative may tell the child that no one will look after the family now, or ask the child to help get him out. Others will urge a compromise to keep the family together. In one case reported in India, a mother and child were put out of their home, and the child took back what they had said before standing by it again.

Some mothers feel that pressure so hard that they lean on the child themselves. If you notice that in yourself, call Tele-MANAS 14416, the government’s free mental health helpline, or ask the committee for a counsellor for yourself. Noticing it is a reason to ask for help, and help is there.

Research on children in this position finds the same thing. They take back what they said more often when the person is a parent figure, and when the parent at home does not stand with them. In one US study, nearly one child in four did. In India, studies of Special Court cases in five states looked at children who turned hostile, going back on their word. Many had been abused by someone close to them, such as a father, stepfather or other relative. HAQ, which supports children through these cases in Delhi, found that this tends to happen once the child is back in contact with the family.

You can stand between the child and that pressure. If the child takes it back, that does not mean they lied. Keep the child away from the person even then. No one can make you drop the case, and no one can buy it off. It is not a matter that can be settled between families. If relatives press you to settle or offer money, what to do when the family presses you sets out the steps, and if anyone threatens you, read if something goes wrong.

Say to the child the sentence they need most: This is not your fault, and you will never be in trouble for telling me. Then add the line this house needs: What happens to the money is for the grown-ups to fix. There is more on what to say to the child. You can keep them safe without asking them to stop loving anyone.

To a relative who presses, once 1098 has been called, you can say: The child comes first. We will manage the rest. You do not owe anyone a longer answer than that.

A child who watches the adults turn the house toward them learns that telling was safe, and keeps that for life. The money will still be hard for a while, and you do not have to carry it alone.

The question will come back, at the door and on the phone, for months. Ghar kaun chalayega? You already do. You have run this home all along, beside his wage. You can run it now with the child at its centre, and with whatever help the law gives, slow as it is.

If you are reading this tonight, call 1098. If someone is hurt or threatened now, or you cannot keep the child away, call 112. If you are not safe either, call 181, the Women Helpline.