What is conduct disorder? Why are minor committing sexual assaults

Hyderabad: On October 29, five children in conflict with the law were taken into custody in Hayathnagar for sexually assaulting a minor girl.

The boys reportedly had their eyes on one of their classmates, and in August 2022, they sexually assaulted her at her home when she was alone. One of them filmed the act on a cell phone.

After 10 days, two of the CCL boys went to the girl's home and sexually abused her again and recorded it on their cell phones. Later, they shared the video with their friends through WhatsApp.

In another similar incident, in June 2022, a 17-year-old girl in the city who was returning from a party was sexually assaulted by a group of six people including five minors in a moving vehicle in the Jubilee Hills area. In this case, the video of the incident was shared widely on social media.

Why are minors committing such heinous crimes? Where are they getting ideas from? Is parental negligence also to blame?

Where do children get ideas from?

Dr. Preethi Swaroop, Senior Consultant Psychiatrist of Xenia hospital in Hyderabad says that access to social media and parental neglect of children are the main reasons why children end up committing such crimes. He says such children are suffering from 'Conduct Disorder.

"The children who are suffering from Conduct Disorder show very bad behavior and they do not conduct themselves properly. Disturbances in the home atmosphere or substance abuse of fathers could be the reason for their bad behavior. Probably, it could even be such children getting beaten up by their parents for no reason. They grow up to become individuals without any kind of empathy. They only seek pleasure. They will go to any extent to achieve this," he says.

He says once such children cross 18 years, this condition will be called `Anti-Social Personality Disorder'.

Another factor that experts point to is that children these days do not face an access issue. "From my experience, I have seen children as young as 12 years old consuming alcohol and cannabis. If they can manage to get it, why not porn?" asks Dr. Swaroop.

Dr. Purnima Nagaraja, Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist at Dhriti Wellness Centre in Hyderabad says that the pandemic paved the way for children to get access to mobile phones and thereby to various content.

"Nowadays, there is way too much information available at an age when people are not able to process it. That's the reason why there is a lot of early sexual experimentation. Once, we heard a 10-year-old boy molest a girl. At 9 or 10 years, you won't expect any hormonal action or any bodily response to sexual deeds," says Dr. Purnima.

Dr. Purnima says that diet also plays a huge role in this. "Eating a lot of processed food, food containing Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), highly salted food, deep fried food, all of these things have a huge effect on the mind and the brain. It can make you hyperactive. It can make you uninterested in your studies. Early hormonal maturation also happens in such cases," explains Dr. Purnima.

She also says that parents watching porn could also be a reason why the children are drawn to it. "I have had a few clients whose fathers watch porn late at night thinking the child would be asleep, but he would not be," she says.

She adds that some of her clients, minors, film their sisters, mothers, or classmates for money. "They think that if they put it on some website and if it gets viral, they would get money," says Dr. Purnima.

Two years of lack of proper schooling and sitting at home have increased porn viewing among children, say experts. According to sources, some video games also encourage molestation, substance abuse, etc by giving points for these.

Experts suggest that a lack of sex education is also a reason why children end up committing such crimes. "Lack of healthy boy-girl relationships, parents not talking to children about sex, teachers not talking about sex. If you are going to deal with sex in such a horrible manner, where are the kids going to get healthy knowledge from?" asks Dr. Purnima.

Way ahead

"Parents need to be a little more cautious to clear their browsing histories. There is a need for more communication between parents and children and proper family time," says Dr. Purnima.

She also says that sex is something that parents can humorously explain to their children.

Dr. Swarup emphasizes the need for early diagnosis of such behavioral disorders. He further states the importance of the Childhood Behaviours Checklist (CBCL) in early diagnosis. CBCL is a tool to assess behavioral and emotional problems in children.

"It consists of 100 questions which the parents have to sit and tick. Once it is done, it is handed over to psychologists who assess the scores and give the analysis. Now, parental counseling is equally important like that of the children."

However, Dr. Swaroop says that the first step is to make the parents aware that these are serious issues and that they need to be addressed.