Said Aloud Before the Guests Arrive

A week before any big gathering, someone in the family makes the list. Who is coming on which train, and who will fetch them from the station. Which cousins share the terrace room, how many mattresses to borrow from the neighbours, who sleeps in the hall and who gets the bed under the fan. In most homes an elder makes it, a grandmother at the dining table with a notebook, or a grandfather on a long phone call. The list looks the same before Diwali and Eid, before Christmas, Onam, Pongal and the Puja holidays, before a wedding or a funeral. Nobody argues with it.

In many families, one name on that list is handled differently. Nothing is written next to it. But when the rooms are sorted, the adults glance at each other, and somebody quietly moves a child from one room to another. He might be an uncle, a cousin, a brother-in-law or a family friend everyone calls uncle. Some families know he harmed a child years ago. Others only suspect, because of something a child once said, or the way he always offers to take the little ones out. It is usually a man, so this essay says he, though the rule that follows is the same for anyone.

The minute at the door

A woman of thirty-four arrives at her parents’ home for Diwali with her own two children behind her. He is already there, in the chair by the window where he sits every year. Her mother takes her arm at the door and says it softly, the way she has said it every year since the daughter was fifteen. Just touch his feet and go inside. It is one minute. Don’t make a scene, not today.

So she bends, for one minute, in front of the man who harmed her when she was a child. For the rest of the evening she keeps track of where he is in the house and where her children are, and she eats very little. In many families a man who was harmed as a boy stands at the same door. He is told to hug his uncle at Eid or shake his hand at Christmas, and fewer people notice what it costs him.

Her mother is not trying to hurt her. She is afraid of a fight on the festival day and of losing her own brother. She has said the same sentence for so long that it no longer sounds like a choice. Most families who have asked this of a daughter or a son asked it out of fear and habit, because nobody ever showed them another way. If your family has done this, you can change it this year.

How a family behaves afterwards stays with a survivor for life. In a 2026 survey of 342 adult survivors abroad, those who felt let down by their own family, during or after the abuse, had worse trauma symptoms as adults. A study of children in the United States found something close to it. Some children took back an account that investigators had already confirmed. They were more likely to do so when other relatives did not believe them, and when a court recommended that they keep visiting the person they had named.

The word of the house

The person who chose to harm a child is the only one responsible for that harm. Nothing a family does or fails to do moves that blame onto anyone else. But every family decides, every year, who gets to be near its children.

Every Indian family also has people whose word settles things. In a Hindi-speaking home they are the bade, in a Tamil home the periyavar, in many Urdu-speaking homes the buzurg. They decide who is served first and where the bride’s people sit, and a quarrel usually ends when they speak. Families have always expected their elders to look out for those who cannot yet speak for themselves. On a festival night, that means the youngest child in the house.

Most families with a person like this already move children around him without a word. A whisper reaches only the people standing close to it. It misses the cousin who arrived late and the new daughter-in-law nobody told, and it leaves one tired aunt doing all the watching. A rule said aloud by an elder reaches every adult at once.

So before the guests arrive, an elder says this to the grown-ups of the family, plainly and in their own language:

Whoever comes to this house, no child of ours is ever alone with him. Not for one minute.

If the elders will not say it, parents can say it for their own children, and keep it. If the person is the eldest himself, the next eldest says it.

Some of the elders who make the list are his own parents or his brothers and sisters. Saying the rule does not mean you have stopped loving him. It means the children come first in your house, which is where you have always put them.

What the rule covers

A rule this short only works if everyone knows exactly what it means. Child-protection guidance from the government of New South Wales, in Australia, warns that promising not to leave someone “alone with the children” is not enough. It has to be spelled out. So spell it out:

• no child sleeps in a room he sleeps in, or stays overnight at his home;
• no child goes with him on an errand, to the shop, to the station, or for a ride, even a short one;
• no closed doors: no room, terrace, car or storeroom where he is alone with a child;
• no child is sent alone to wake him or take him his tea;
• no gifts, money or outings for one child that the parents have not agreed to first.

Name one adult at every gathering whose job is to know where he is, and change that person every few hours. Prevention guidance in the United States warns that an adult being somewhere in the house does not count unless that adult knows the rule and has agreed to keep it. The survivor’s children are covered like every other child, so she is not the one watching all evening.

The rule limits him and nobody else. It covers boys as much as girls, and teenagers as much as toddlers. It does not mean keeping girls indoors or covering them up, and the children’s fun does not end early. They still fight over the sparklers on the terrace and stay up far too late. Only he loses something, and what he loses is time alone with a child.

Tell the children a simple version without frightening them: You don’t ever have to go anywhere alone with him, even if he asks, even if he says I said yes. Come and find me first. Use the name the child calls him by. Make sure they know whom to tell if anyone breaks the rule, and that they will never be in trouble for telling.

You do not need proof to say the rule, and you do not need to argue it with him. If he asks, the answer is the same sentence. If a report has already been made to the police, ask them or 1098 before anyone tells him about the rule. Some relatives will be offended, and the evening may be quieter than usual. Families have set rules for guests before, about smoking indoors or drinking at a wedding, and the festival went on.

Where the rule stops

The rule protects children at your own gatherings. It does not settle anything, and it does not replace the law.

In more than 96 of every 100 cases recorded under India’s child sexual abuse law, POCSO, the accused is someone the child knows. In 2024, police recorded 3,658 cases where the accused was a family member. A great many families have a person like this.

POCSO says that anyone who knows a child has been sexually harmed, or fears that a child will be, must tell the police. Calling 1098, the national child helpline, will connect you to them, and the law protects anyone who reports in good faith. You may know or fear that he has harmed a child since November 2012, or that some child, in your family or outside it, is at risk from him now. Then do not wait for the festival to pass, and do not handle it inside the family. Call 1098, and if a child is in danger right now, call 112. If a child tells you something, listen, believe them, and do not ask for details; leave the questions to trained people. A child who lives in the same house as someone who has harmed another child can also be protected by the Child Welfare Committee, and 1098 can connect you to it. If the person is still a teenager, the duty to report is the same, and he will need help from a professional as well as limits.

If the person he harmed is grown up now, talk to her before anyone goes to the police about her case, and stand behind her through whatever follows. She may still be able to bring a case, and 181, the women’s helpline, can connect her to legal help. She can also get a free lawyer through the District Legal Services Authority. A man harmed as a boy can ask there too, though for men it depends on income. Never let her find out afterwards that the family decided for her. If any child is at risk now, protecting that child comes first: call 1098 or a lawyer about reporting, and tell her before you act.

A seat for her

The woman at the door needs one more promise, and it is also the elders’ to give. She never has to come because he is coming, and she never has to greet him. That means no touching his feet and no taking his blessing, no Eid embrace and no Christmas hug. She does not sit beside him at the meal or stand next to him in the family photograph. She does not have to explain why.

An elder can tell her this privately, before the festival:

You don’t have to see him. If you come, you will not greet him and you will not sit near him. If only one of you can be in this house that day, it will be you.

Many survivors stay away from every festival for years so that the family never has to choose between them. That last sentence tells her the family has chosen. If the family knows he harmed a child, the stronger choice is not to invite him at all, and the rule and this promise are the least it owes her. Let her decide how close she wants to be to the gathering. Some years she will want to come and some years she will not, and both are fine.

If she was made to touch his feet last year, tell her: We should not have asked that of you. It will not happen again. Many survivors wait decades to hear one sentence like that from their family. Somewhere in yours there may be a daughter, a son or a cousin who has not come home for a festival in years. They might come this time, if someone said it.

If a child is in danger right now, call 112. If a child has been harmed, or you are worried about one, call 1098, the national child helpline, free, any time of day. For emotional support, iCALL offers free and confidential counselling on 9152987821. This is a hard subject. If it is close to you, you do not have to carry it alone.