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Abstract
Child Sex Abuse means contacts or interactions between a child and an older or more knowledgeable child or adult (stranger, sibling, parent, or caretaker), when the child is being used as an object of gratification for the older child’s or adult’s needs. Such contacts or interactions are carried out against the child using force, trickery, bribes, threats or pressure. [UNICEF, 2001]. Ironically, a majority of such cases occur in the home, school or the neighbourhood next door.In India, many gruesome incidents of CSA have been recorded in the past ranging from incest, rapes, sexual abuse, digital rape, sodomy, inappropriate touch to sexual assaults. The worst part is that such abuse is inflicted upon a child by a person in his immediate circle and a stunning majority of these cases go unnoticed. In this background the study focuses on “Growth and Variations in Child Abuse across States and Union Territories in India” during the period 2007-2017.The Objectives of the study are to study the variations in the child abuse across the States and Union territories in India and to assess the growth of child abuse across the States and Union territories in India. Data for the study collected from the secondary sources. The secondary data on total population, child population, crime/ violence against children, incidence of crime against children and missing children across the states/UTs of India were available for the decadal census year 2011. The state wise decadal data on child sexually abused were available between the periods 2007 to 2017 for a decade. The coefficient of variation, compound and exponential growth rates were calculated to fulfill the objectives of the study. The study found that the highest growth rate of child abuses was observed in the state of Lakshadweep and the lowest growth of child abuses was observed in the state of Odisha. Hence, the study recommend that the government should take severe actions against the criminals whoever abusing the child sexually, physically and should punish them immediately if they found guilty.