Until recently, short film director Kireet Khurana was like most Indian parents. He knew about child sexual abuse, of course, but wasn’t well aware of facts about the crime — like the high incidence of child sexual abuse, for instance. That changed when Khurana became the creative producer and scriptwriter of Komal, a 10-minute animation video about a young girl named Komal and what happens after she gets sexually abused by her father’s friend. The video, commissioned by the non-governmental organisation, Childline Foundation, was released in January this year in 13 Indian regional languages and has crossed 2.5 million views on YouTube. NGOs in countries such as Bangladesh and Afghanistan, among others, have already requested for the video. “I remember seeing the video posted on someone’s social media account in Arabic,” says Khurana, who works for production house Climb Media.

The video will benefit the hearing-impaired, the learning impared and children with dyslexia and Attention Deficit Hyper-activity Disorder (ADHD)