Revision summary
Child abuse is organised in family, labour, and school, not only by strangers. Rising numbers mix better reporting with new urban and digital risks. Caste, gender, and poverty stack the harm. POCSO named what honour had hidden. The trend is social structure becoming public.
Model answer
Introduction
A sociological narrative of rising child abuse does not stop at monsters. It locates harm in the family, caste labour, school, and the informal economy. ‘Increasing’ is both more reporting after new laws and real exposure as households and cities change.
Body
Where abuse sits
- The household, organised by Seed-and-Earth authority, can hide sexual and physical harm as discipline.
- Child labour in farms, workshops, and domestic service is abuse as work, beyond a narrow informal-sector raid story.
- Schools and hostels reproduce caste humiliation and corporal harm.
- Digital circulation creates new images of harm and new reporting.
Why a trend appears now
- POCSO and helplines name crimes that custom called family honour.
- Migration splits care; children in slums and left-behind villages are less watched by kin and more by the street.
- Media, like the fourth pillar at its best, makes cases public.
Stratification
- Dalit, Adivasi, and girl children face stacked risk.
- Middle-class silence in coaching hostels is a class variant, not an absence.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD FAM[Patriarchal household] --> AB[Child abuse] LB[Child labour school] --> AB RP[POCSO media] --> VS[Visible trend] AB --> VS
Conclusion
The narrative is that child abuse is a structural product of patriarchal families, cheap child labour, and weak civic care. The increasing trend is partly visibility, partly new urban and digital settings. Law without wages, school, and a challenge to household sovereignty will not close it.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Do you agree that the issue of child labour raises questions about and beyond the informal sector ? Give reasons.
Next question on this syllabus topic (2017 · Q5(d)). View answer →
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Is the increase only reporting?
Reporting rose. Labour, migration, and digital harm also expanded the field.
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Is the family the safest place?
Statistically much abuse is intra-family. Sociology must not romanticise the home.
PYQ trend
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