Safe and Unsafe Touch: The Sentence Your Child Needs

Long before anything goes wrong, a child decides whether you are someone they can tell. They work it out slowly, at home. They watch what happens when small things go wrong, like a broken glass or a bad mark at school.

On 15 October 2026, the Supreme Court of India said children must be taught about their own bodies. They should learn the difference between safe and unsafe touch, starting in the primary classes. The Court also wants 1098, the national child helpline, put up on the wall of every classroom.

It is a good order, and most of it will happen in schools, with trained teachers. Whether it works will still be decided at home, with you. Further down this page is one sentence every child should hear from you, and what to do if a child ever tells you something.

What does the Supreme Court order mean for parents?

The Court wants children to learn about their bodies, about safe and unsafe touch, and about consent, in a way that suits their age. For a young child, consent is simple. It means they can say no to a touch, and someone will listen.

The Court also wants sex education and digital safety in the school curriculum, with lessons written by NCERT and the state education councils. Those words can sound alarming. For small children they mean something modest: the names of body parts, which parts are private, and whom to tell.

The order came out of a case brought by the Just Rights for Children Alliance about child sexual abuse material online. Most of it deals with internet companies. Then the Court turned to children. It said its safeguards would be of little use if children did not know about them, or did not know where to turn.

So it asked for teachers to be trained to spot grooming, the slow way an abuser wins a child’s trust before any harm is done. Teachers should also know what to do when a child tells them about abuse. Schools should hold regular sessions for parents. Governments should offer free counselling to children who have been harmed, for as long as they need it. The government has to report its progress to the Court by 10 December 2026. Our explainer on the full order sets out who has to do what.

One line in the order begins with the words above all. The Court said children must be encouraged to come forward without fear. They must be told they will never be blamed for speaking up. They will get all the help they need, and their privacy will be protected. That promise matters more than any rule about touch, because a rule only works if a child is willing to tell someone.

Is teaching safe and unsafe touch enough?

It is a good start, but it is not enough on its own. To a child, harm does not always look like danger.

Schools that teach body safety are doing serious work, and the Court chose its words well. Many of us grew up hearing good touch, bad touch. The Court said safe and unsafe instead. A child who hears bad touch can start to believe they are the bad one. Unsafe keeps that weight off the child.

Still, every lesson about touch counts on one thing. It assumes a child will know unsafe touch when it happens, because it will feel wrong.

Often it does not, because the child usually knows the person. Take the most serious cases under the POCSO Act, those of penetrative sexual assault. In 2024, the child knew the offender in 96.6% of them, according to NCRB’s Crime in India report.

With teenagers, that person is often a friend, or someone they met online. It can be someone the family trusts, like the tutor the whole building recommends. It can be the family friend who offers to watch the children at a wedding, and sometimes it is a relative. It can be a man or a woman, an adult or a child a few years older.

Most people are exactly who they seem. What deserves your attention is a pattern: someone who keeps looking for time alone with one child, gives gifts that are kept quiet, and makes small secrets.

People who harm children rarely start with anything frightening. They start with attention, and often by winning the family’s trust first. Then they ask for a small secret, and the secret slowly grows. By the time anything happens, the child may feel special and confused at the same time. Or they may be frightened into silence.

So a child taught that unsafe touch feels bad may not recognise what is happening. There is a harder cost too. If it did not feel frightening, or if they froze and did not say no, a child may decide it was their own fault.

Studies of why children stay silent find this again and again. Children who blame themselves often wait much longer to tell, if they tell at all. Others stay quiet because they were threatened. Some love the person and fear what telling will do to the family. Children stay silent in loving homes too, and a child who does not tell has done nothing wrong.

The research on school lessons is encouraging. Children who take part learn more, and they still remember it six months later. Trials found no sign that the lessons make children more anxious. But a lesson cannot keep a child safe on its own. It can give a child the words, and then an adult has to be there to hear them. Body safety has too often been the lesson India taught only to children, and not to the adults around them.

What should I tell my child before anything happens?

Every Indian child learns respect early. Say namaste to aunty. Touch your grandfather’s feet. Go and give your uncle a hug, he came all this way. We teach it because respect is one of the best things a family can give a child.

Respect has always meant how a child treats elders. In a family that values it, it also means how elders treat a child.

Folded hands and touching an elder’s feet are our oldest greetings. The hug is the newer one. A child who greets an uncle with a namaste is every bit as respectful, and more traditional. Most hugs in a family are pure love. The point is simply that a child gets a say over their own body.

You do not have to make a scene to teach this. Before the guests arrive, tell your child: A namaste is enough, beta. You don’t have to hug anyone. When the moment comes, a quiet namaste karo from you says the rest. Your child learns something bigger than a greeting. A no about their own body will be respected, and the family stands behind it.

An elder who deserves a child’s respect will never ask that child to hide something about their body. That is the idea behind the sentence every child should hear. Say it calmly, and say it more than once:

If anyone, even someone we love, touches your private parts, asks you to touch theirs, or asks you to keep a secret about your body, tell me. You will never be in trouble for telling me.

In Hindi: अगर कोई भी, चाहे वह हमारा अपना ही क्यों न हो, तुम्हारे प्राइवेट पार्ट्स को छुए, या तुमसे अपने प्राइवेट पार्ट्स छूने को कहे, या तुम्हारे शरीर से जुड़ी कोई बात छुपाने को कहे, तो मुझे ज़रूर बताना। मुझे बताने पर तुम्हें कभी डाँट नहीं पड़ेगी।

If you can, add two more lines. People who harm children rarely use the word secret, so you can say: Even if they said it was a game. Even if they said something bad would happen.

The sentence helps because it does not depend on how a touch felt. A child who felt confused, or even liked the attention, can still notice what happened. Someone touched their private parts, or asked them to keep it quiet. The sentence also tells them ahead of time that telling is safe. That is the promise the Court said every child must be given.

Teach the difference between a secret and a surprise. A surprise is kept for a short while, and then everyone knows, like a birthday present. A secret about the body is never one to keep. Neither is any secret an elder asks your child to keep from you.

Give your child plain words for the private parts of the body. In many Indian languages, the only words we have feel either too formal or too rude. So pick one, and use it without embarrassment. Private parts, which schools already use, is a fine start. A child who has a word can tell you what happened. A child who only has wahan often cannot.

Give your child more than one person to tell. Children choose who they tell, and it is not always a parent. One small Mumbai study looked at 59 children who said they had faced an unsafe situation. Of those, 41% had told an aunt or uncle, and 10% had told their mother.

That is no failure of mothers. Children often protect the people closest to them. So name two or three adults your child trusts, like a grandparent, an aunt or a teacher, and ask them to say the sentence too. When a child hears it from three people in the family, they know the whole family means it.

The same rule holds on a phone. Someone might ask your child for photos of their body, or ask them to hide a chat from you. Whether your child met that person online or at home, that person is breaking the rule. Tell your child plainly: Even if you’ve already sent something, come and tell me. You won’t lose your phone. We’ll sort it out together. Online threats can be reported on 1930 or at cybercrime.gov.in.

What should you do if a child tells you about abuse?

Picture an eight-year-old on the way home from a birthday party. They are quieter than usual, looking out at the road, and you are thinking about dinner. If your child says something now, it will probably be half a sentence. They are testing whether the rest is safe to say.

The first minute matters a great deal. Here is what helps in that minute. For what comes after, 1098, the national child helpline, is there.

Keep your face as calm as you can. Your child is watching it to see whether it is safe to go on.

Believe them. Say I’m glad you told me. You did the right thing. It’s not your fault. You may need to say that last part many times in the months ahead.

Do not promise to keep it a secret. Say instead, I’m going to get help from people whose job is to keep you safe.

Do not ask for every detail, and do not ask why they did not tell you sooner. Let them say what they want to say. Afterwards, write down their words as closely as you can, and note when they said them. That way, they will not have to repeat it again and again.

Do not confront the person yourself. Leave that to the police.

Keep that person away from the child, even if they live in your home. Call 1098 for help with what to do next, or 112 if the child is in immediate danger. If it happened in the last few days, take the child to a doctor. Under the POCSO Rules, a hospital cannot hold back emergency care just because there is no police complaint yet. The doctor will also inform the police, as the law requires.

The POCSO Act asks anyone who knows of sexual abuse of a child to report it to the police, and that includes parents. 1098 can help you do that, or you can go to the police yourself. The law protects anyone who reports in good faith. The process can be slow and hard, but you do not have to face it alone.

If your first reaction was shock or anger, it is not too late. Go back to your child and say: I believe you. I’m glad you told me.

Get support for yourself as well. Your child will lean on you for a long time, and you will need someone to lean on too.

Say it this week

The Court has told governments and schools across India that children must be able to speak up without fear. What a child hears at home makes that easier to believe.

So find a quiet moment this week, on the way back from school or in the few minutes before sleep. Say the sentence, and keep it light. Then say it again next month, and the month after that.

No sentence can promise a child’s safety. If a child is harmed despite everything a parent did, the fault lies with the person who did it. What a sentence can do is make telling easier. It will feel like a small thing to say, and it is the part of the lesson that home teaches best.

If you are worried about a child right now, call 1098, the national child helpline. If a child is in immediate danger, call 112. Online threats can be reported on 1930. If you need support for yourself, Tele-MANAS offers free mental health support on 14416.