Intending to fight the sexual abuse of children, Bollywood actor Vidya Balan on Tuesday joined hands with actor/filmmaker Rahul Bose’s NGO HEAL (Help Eradicate Abuse through Learning).
“The abuse is often so traumatic that it paralyses people. No one wants to talk about it… It leaves you hopeless,” Vidya said in a statement.
Vidya played a survivor of child abuse in one of her films Kahaani A: Durga Rani Singh that was released in December last year.
Known for her acting in films like The Dirty Picture, Kahaani and Ishqiya, the 38-year-old Mumbai-based actor believes it is high time to speak against the social evil.
“After Kahaani A was released, many people reached out to me to share their personal trauma. What was shocking though was that many people I thought I knew well were also victims of it,” she added.
Talking about her association with Rahul, Vidya stated: “We tend to believe that child sexual abuse doesn’t happen to people we know. That’s when I realised how wrong my perception was. So, when Rahul told me about his initiative to fight this evil, I immediately decided to be a part of it.”
Both Rahul and Vidya will speak on the problem of child sexual abuse at an event, to be held in the suburbs of Mumbai.