Twenty three-year-old Vishnu Teja can’t remember the last time he slept peacefully. Memories of the physical and emotional assault of several years come hurtling back, night after night, piercing him like sniper fire. It started when he was barely six, and like in most sexual abuse cases, it was perpetrated by a family member — an older cousin. “I didn’t even know or understand what he was trying to do to me. All I knew was that it was wrong,” he recalls. This was the first in a series of sexual assaults that continued till adolescence. “I used to wonder if there was something wrong with me that I was repeatedly abused all through my childhood,” he says, adding that he used to feel disgusted even when he was kissed on his cheeks.

Vishnu’s story would resonate with thousands of young boys who have been violated in a country where sexual abuse is stereotypically considered an assault on girls/women. And this is the first time that Vishnu, an LGBT activist, has opened up on his emotional scars. It wasn’t easy, though. He mulled over it several times before finally approaching us. “I cannot find peace even today. Recent cases of abuse against boys brought back traumatic memories. It has taken me so many years to open up and tell my story because the society is finally waking up to the fact that sexual abuse is not restricted to girls and women; boys can be victims too. Parents tend to think about the safety of their daughters, but they need to understand that every child is vulnerable. A boy child can’t protect himself either,” he says.

A study conducted by the government of India reveals that over 17,220 children are victims of sexual abuse, of whom a majority — 52.94 per cent — are boys. Andhra Pradesh alone makes up for 33.87 per cent of the total number of cases.

On Tuesday, as Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi held a rally in Kurnool to raise awareness about child sexual abuse, Vishnu went on to describe how his parents kept brushing aside his horror tales. He was enrolled in a residential school and when he was in class 6, he was abused by his math teacher. “He would sexually assault me and whenever I fought back, he would humiliate me in class. He even beat me black and blue once for no reason and when I told my father about it, he dismissed it, saying I was making up stories to come back home.”

Not once did he consider confiding with the school authorities about the abuse. “It was a corporate residential school; they would have covered up issues like these. The authorities never gave me or any student the confidence that we could discuss our problems with them.”

Frustrated, Vishnu attempted suicide to escape the teacher’s clutches, but was saved by his class mates. Then he was sent home. His father turned against him for “failing” him. “He never tried to ask why I didn’t want to go back to school. He never took me in his arms or tried to understand what may have happened. He was too busy blaming me.”

But moving to a school near home didn’t guarantee any safety. “When I was in class 9, my biology teacher called me home while correcting papers. He sexually abused me, forcefully removing my clothes, and I stood by the wall trying to block out what was happening. It began then and got worse later on. It was mandatory for students of class 9 to attend tuitions. I vividly remember my biology teacher sitting on the stairs of the second floor where the tuitions were being held, and diverted me to an empty room on the third floor. Every day, he, along with the physics and math teachers would rape me in that empty room from 6 pm to 7.45 pm. My tuition classmates used to wonder why the teachers allowed me to come so late and attend classes only for 15 minutes,” says Vishnu.

Worse still, the teachers would call up his parents and tell them he needed special classes because he was weak in those subjects. “And my parents believed them. I used to feel disgusted with myself and wonder if I was going through all that because I was somehow inviting them to do so, if my effeminate traits somehow made me more susceptible to abuse.” He never told his parents because there was “no chance” he could have an open dialogue with them. He didn’t tell his friends either because “they would either laugh it off or not take it seriously”.

Unable to vent before his parents, he wrote to the Human Rights Commission about facing negligence at home. “When they came, my father wasn’t home, so they spoke to me and my mother. My mother told them that I had written the letter during an emotional phase and that she would solve the issue within the house. They just left after that.”

Today, as an activist himself, he hopes to bring about the ‘mindset’ change that child rights crusaders like Satyarthi are striving towards. As the next step, he plans to undertake awareness campaigns in educational institutes and recommend setting up of anti-sexual abuse cells. “I’ve met so many child abuse victims who still don’t have a safe platform to share their pain. Gender has nothing to do with abuse. The government’s legal definition of rape for adults should be changed too. But I believe child abuse survivors like me will find a voice sooner rather than later,” he signs off.

