“Didi, is it okay if we don’t go to court?”
The question was asked with a specific kind of exhaustion—the kind that shouldn’t exist in the eyes of a child. Madhuri Shinde, a Program Manager at our shelter home, Naunihal, remembers the look clearly. It wasn’t a question born of fear alone, but of a desperate craving for closure–she could clearly see the prosecution fatigue in them. The girls didn’t want to be “victims” in a witness box; they wanted to be children in a classroom or on a playground.
In the hallowed halls of our judicial system, we have a very rigid definition of justice. It is a binary: conviction or acquittal. We measure the success of a case by the length of a sentence and the weight of a gavel. But for children who have faced something as grave and traumatizing as sexual violence, justice often wears a completely different face.
The Architect of Dignity (POCSO Act, 2015)
When the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act was drafted, it was heralded for its revolutionary empathy. It recognized that a child’s psyche is not a miniature version of an adult’s; thus, the law itself had to function as a sanctuary. This empathy is woven into the very mechanics of the process: ensuring the child isn’t called unnecessarily for trial, the trial is not stretched over a long period (over-stretched), asking questions through the judge in a sensitive manner, using screens to ensure the child does not have to face the accused), and barring anyone not directly required from the courtroom (anonymity maintenance and prevention of secondary trauma).
But perhaps its most poetic provision was the appointment of a Support Person.
A Support Person is intended to be a lighthouse in a storm—a trained professional who guides the child through the labyrinth of the legal system while simultaneously anchoring them to their education, health, and safety. In the spirit of the law, the Support Person exists to protect the child from the process as much as guide them through it by preventing re-traumatization, bridging communication between the child and legal systems, and providing emotional assistance.
However, a subtle, dangerous shift is occurring within the system. The role is being reimagined as an arm of the prosecution.
As shared by our Co-Founder & Director, Priti Patkar, in her blog post “Rethinking The Role of A Support Person.” A case-management meeting recently saw this tension boil over. Renuka, a dedicated social worker, stood visibly distressed as she was reprimanded by the Child Welfare Committee (CWC). A case she supported had ended in an acquittal, and the system pointed the finger at her. They viewed her “ineffectiveness” through the lens of a failed conviction.
In that room, the child’s rehabilitation was a footnote. The conviction was the headline. We have begun to mistake the Support Person for a private investigator, forgetting that their primary duty is to keep a soul intact.
The Weight of the Gavel
The news broke recently: “Bombay High Court upheld a 14-year jail term for a man who exploited eight minor girls at an orphanage in Raigad.”
This case dates back to April 2015, when a teacher alerted CWC member Advocate Manisha Tulpule that students—some as young as eleven—had complained of abuse at an orphanage. Officers from the CWC then visited the orphanage and found that it was being run without the required permissions. The CWC immediately took all the children into its custody.
After being moved out of the orphanage, several girls reported they had been abused by the son of the person running the orphanage. An FIR was then lodged, resulting in charges under the IPC and POCSO Act.
Afterwards, the girls were shifted to our shelter home, and we were also appointed as the Support Person in the case. At the time, it was one of the first instances in Maharashtra where the Support Person clause was fully implemented.
We remember those girls when they first arrived at Naunihal. They were draped in a heavy curtain of uncertainty, betrayed by the very people meant to protect them. Our work wasn’t initially about preparing for a trial; it was about nutrition, acceptance, restful sleep, safety in their new environment, counselling, and the slow, agonizing process of rebuilding trust.
During the trial, the disconnect became undeniable. While lawyers prepared their arguments, the girls asked if they could stay at the shelter home instead of going to court. They never asked about the accused. They never inquired about the length of a potential sentence. What they wanted most was simply for the abuse to stop—and for some, to trace their families, return to school, or see their friends. To the state, the trial was a search for truth. To the girls, the trial was the re-infection of a healing wound.
The True Meaning of “Moving On”
Despite the system’s best efforts to shield them, the girls occasionally came face-to-face with the accused, which triggered intense trauma. They were angry, yes, but they had no desire for a conversation about the nature or duration of a punishment. They simply said, “Whatever happened is behind us.”
Still, the wheels of the law turned. On March 3, 2020, a Panvel court found all three individuals guilty. The elder brother, who was also the Director of the shelter home, was sentenced to 14 years of imprisonment; his younger brother received 10 years for sexual exploitation and other offences under POCSOA; and their mother was convicted under Section 19 read with Section 21 of the POCSO Act for failing to report the offences despite the girls confiding in her.
Then, all three accused appealed to the High Court.
By this time, most of the girls were young adults—some working, some pursuing passions, and all living lives beyond the trauma they had been forced to revisit for a decade. When we reached out to them to sign a new Vakalatnama for the appeal, they weren’t concerned with the legal outcome. They were simply afraid of being dragged back into the loop of testimonies and trials.
For ten years, through every milestone of their recovery, not one of these girls asked us what happened to the men who hurt them. They didn’t need to know. Their “justice” wasn’t a number of years in a cell; their justice was the jobs they held, the friends they made, and the nights they finally slept unafraid
Why Justice Isn’t a Verdict
We must ask ourselves: Who is justice for?
If we measure the success of a Support Person by the rate of conviction, we incentivize the system to prioritize the “case” over the “child.” We risk turning vulnerable children into tools for the state rather than humans in need of healing.
We haven’t told the girls about the High Court’s recent judgment yet. Neither did they ever ask. Perhaps we won’t.
In the eyes of the law, justice is a binary: conviction or acquittal. But for the survivor, justice is the ability to build a relationship, to trust again, and to hold down a job.
Maybe the real justice is simply that they are able to move on in their lives.
