From helping women inmates in prenatal and postnatal stages, to vaccination of children and giving them pre-primary education, this is how prison authorities are looking after children who stay with their mothers inside jails.

The Human Development Report for 1995 published by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) made a striking revelation that there was not a single country where women enjoyed equality with men.

Sexual abuse of children is an issue shrouded in ignorance and denial in our country. One of the chief reasons for this conspiracy of silence is the high value, almost idealization, of the family.

A society is judged by the way it treats its women and children. So is a judicial system. Nothing is more horrifying than the sexual abuse of a child: nothing more reprehensible than a judicial system that subsequently victimises the victim, police behaviour that adds terror to agony.