CHILD RIGHTS... LAWS EXIST BUT NEEDS TO BE REALIZED AND EXECUTED

India has always recognized the category of persons below the age of 18 years as distinct legal entity. Moreover, after ratifying the UNCRC in 1992, India changed its law on juvenile justice to ensure that every person below the age of 18 years, who is in need of care and protection, is entitled to receive it from the State.

Children need special attention since children are more vulnerable than adults to the conditions under which they live hence they are more affected than any other age group by the actions and inaction of the society. In most societies, views persist that children are their parent’s property, or are adults in the making. Children are not seen as people who have a mind of their own, a view to express, the capacity to make a choice and an ability to decide. Instead of being guided by adults, their life is decided by adults.  Children are particularly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.

Four sets of civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights which are Survival, Protection, Development and Participation.

Right to Survival includes: Right to life, the highest attainable standard of health, nutrition, adequate standard of living and a name and a nationality.

Right to Development includes: Right to education, support for early childhood care and development, social security, right to leisure, recreation and cultural activities.

Right to Protection includes freedom from all forms of exploitation, abuse, inhuman or degrading treatment and neglect.

Right to Participation includes; Respect for the views of the child, freedom of expression, access to appropriate information, freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

All rights are dependent on each other and are indivisible. However, because of their nature all rights are divided into:

Immediate Rights (Civil and Political Rights) which include such things as discrimination, punishment, right to a fair hearing in criminal cases and a separate system of juvenile justice, right to life, right to nationality, right to re-unification with the family. Most protection rights fall within the category of immediate rights and therefore demand immediate attention and intervention.

Progressive Rights (Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), which include health and education and the rights that are not covered by the first category.

Child Rights Introduction...

Human rights apply to all age groups; children have the same general human rights as adults. In 1989, world leaders decided that children needed a special convention just for them because people under 18 years old often need special care and protection that adults do not. The leaders also wanted to make sure that the world recognized that children have human rights too. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is the first legally binding international instrument to incorporate the full range of human rights, including civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights.

In India the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) was set up in March 2007 under the Commission for Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005, an Act of Parliament (December 2005). The Commission's Mandate is to ensure that all Laws, Policies, Programmes, and Administrative Mechanisms are in consonance with the Child Rights perspective as enshrined in the Constitution of India and also the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Child is defined as a person in the 0 to 18 years age group.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child sets out the rights that must be realized for children to develop their full potential, free from hunger and want, neglect and abuse. It reflects a new vision of the child. Children are neither the property of their parents nor are they helpless objects of charity. They are human beings and are the subject of their own rights. The Convention offers a vision of the child as an individual and as a member of a family and community, with rights and responsibilities appropriate to his or her age and stage of development. By recognizing children's rights in this way, the Convention firmly sets the focus on the whole child.

Despite the existence of rights, children suffer from poverty, homelessness, abuse, neglect, preventable diseases, unequal access to education and justice systems that do not recognize their special needs. These are problems that occur in both industrialized and developing countries.

The Commission visualises a rights-based perspective flowing into National Policies and Programmes, along with nuanced responses at the State, District and Block levels, taking care of specificities and strengths of each region. In order to touch every child, it seeks a deeper penetration to communities and households and expects that the ground experiences gathered at the field are taken into consideration by all the authorities at the higher level. Thus the Commission sees an indispensable role for the State, sound institution-building processes, respect for decentralization at   the  local  bodies  and  community level and larger societal concern for children and their well-being.

IMMUNIZATION FOR CHILDREN

Immunization is their birth right and they shall have it!!

Have you immunized your child yet? The question echoes like a riposte to a prayer. Immunization is the subject that conjures heated debate as to their efficacy, safety and reliability. A focal point that still remains is whether to immunize or not? 

These days an anti-vaccination upsurge has formed and many believe that immunizing children does more damage than good. Mindless, pointless, senseless, I must say!! Look at the epidemics of infectious diseases. They are spreading like demons. Look at the increasing number of child infanticide in India. Hopeless, shameful!!

Immunization should be designated as the most obvious advantage of all. Keeping your child nontoxic from all the life threatening illnesses is the prime reason why you should opt for vaccinations at first place. The long term health of your child is vital than any other factor.

Besides, as a good citizen I would like to emphasize a point. Although, physicians do educate parents regarding childhood infectious diseases and the vaccines against them, they should let the parents make their own decisions with or without their own personal bias or opinions. The pros and cons of childhood immunization are numerous, but an informed immunization is always an optimal decision.

Parents, in turn, should also assess certain benchmarks before a decision is made:

1.      What is the child's health history and present health status?

2.      What is the threat or possibility of the child getting the disease?

3.      What are the significances of the natural infection if contracted?

4.      How harmless is the serum that is available?

5.      Is the protection provided by the serum solid and long-lasting?

6.      Will the vaccine influence the apposite immune system?

7.       Is the route of vaccine administration compatible with the route of natural infection?

Vaccinations are proved to be the number one catalyst for the control of childhood diseases. However, the rural underprivileged child is still far from this ecstasy. Doctors have found it difficult to educate rural parents who believe that vaccination is a violation of their human rights. They do not wish to be forced into a decision that goes against their personal belief. Aren’t they putting their child at risk by depriving off their birth right?

Think India…..Think!

SAYALI PARAB

CHILD TRAFFICKING

Child Trafficking, Methods and its evils

Child Trafficking is a heinous crime and seriously deprives of their innocent childhood and their basic rights.
On most occasions, the trafficked children are found to be sold to brothels in major metros and cities in India, as commercial sexual workers. Most of the time, trafficking takes place under the following pretext:
1) Giving lucrative offers of jobs in big cities
2) Parents’ inability to pay debts making them give their children as repayment
3) False Marriages
4) Trick parents and children into false promises

They are made to live in a highly unhygienic environment and often are brutally treated by the brothel owners, clients, pimps, etc. Needless to say, they are deprived of education, health and freedom.
Sometimes trafficking is done to provide labour for industries or homes. Even in such conditions, the children are made to face severe unhygienic situations in factories/workshops which may affect their health or get involved in accidents. Some are employed to work as house helps, made to work in bad environments, not given enough food and often subjected to verbal and physical abuse. Some are even sexually exploited by their masters.
For most of these children, it’s a very traumatic experience. They have no idea where they are, they are not sure if they will get back home and they are treated like slaves, without freedom. Such mental agony leads to a highly depressed and disturbed individual with low confidence and self-esteem, when they grow up.

Salma, hailing from the village of Kunuri, narrates he tragic experience of being a victim of trafficking in Punjab. She said that an agent visited her house and promised a job in Delhi. On reaching Delhi, she was sold off to an affluent family.

Anita, from Chhattisgarh, had been missing since last 5 years. Her father says, she has gone to a neighbouring village and did not return yet. Later, he got to know that she been taken to Mumbai by unidentified people. Chances are that she might have been subjected to prostitution or slavery.

A lot of such children are yet to be accounted for. India still remains a sensitive regions in child trafficking.

EVILS AGAINST GIRL CHILD

Vicious Evils of Society plaguing the Girl child     

Children subjected to exploitation like prostitution, child labour often belong to families who are the poorest of poor and very vulnerable and at risk of exploitation in some way or the other. If the family is identified correctly, one may find some history associated with the family in terms of drug abuse, violence, child abuse etc.

Such children leave their families due to unrest or conflicts in the family. They make an attempt to survive on their own by doing any tasks and chores for a living for their family. Poverty cannot be attributed as the only reason for subjecting a child to prostitution. Some inhuman fathers even trade their children (daughters) for alcohol and drugs. Some of the parents are caring, but are helpless and
ignore the fact that their child has been forced in the flesh trade, where as some are tricked into doing it.

The Indian society tends to look at the girl child as an onus; the best way to get rid of it is getting her married off. Due to this attitude, often, the education and health areas of a girl child are ignored. Most families do not invest sufficient money, energy, time or other resources for the development of the girl child, especially so in the rural areas. Due to this, most girls end up doing household chores, working as labourers with parents, looking after younger siblings, etc.
Also, cultural/social evils like child marriages tend to hold back the development of the girl child and often get pulled into sexual exploitation and abuse as a minor.

Indian social beliefs, especially in rural India, coupled with male dominance in society make it even more difficult to rehabilitate the exploited girl. This further reduces her future prospects, since they are not easily embraced by society, let alone for marriage.

It is imperative that the social/cultural scenario with the girl child changes immediately. It is necessary to impart high-quality socio-cultural education to correct the daunting situation.


SAYALI PARAB

DRUG ABUSE

It’s not about cannabis or opium anymore: (child right to care and protection)

At some point of time we have seen a sight of small street children rolling weeds in night-time, catching a corner at shady places slipping away from police patrolling. Lost youngsters using drugs or child beggars using drugs may add to the category, but there are cases where children are wholly and chastely into drugs.

Peer pressure and environment around lure the children to imitate the same. Children caught consuming and dealing drugs are hooked under Juvenile Justice Act. Why exactly do these children fall into drug abuse? Minors consuming drugs usually belonged to families not finally sound, one parents children, peer pressure, child abuse or forced drugging for begging and other criminal conspiracies.  Poor children are more likely to fall prey to drugs. Small kids inhale ink to get a kick as they have very few options to seek pressure. Prince from Rasulpur Saidan village in Patiala district, where more than 24 minor boys, in the age group of nine to 10 years, are "hard-core" drug addicts. Drastic actions are needed besides corrective steps to safeguard that the purity of minors is not stolen by drugs.

A recent story which broke out on Facebook, a man posted real time story about child drug abuse. The story read, he saw a woman with a child begging on streets near subway. He came in contact with the woman on daily basis. Later when he observed that the lady carrying child was always sleeping, he confronted the lady. She was perplexed and left without answer. When peeped into the matter it was exposed that the child was drugged every 3 hours. To add on the child was a victim of trafficking.

Instead of persecuting the drug addict, the drugs itself should be shunned. Child is not bad it’s the drug. Prime Minister Nadrendra modi has put stress on the drug addiction scenario leading to destruction on a massive scale through Maan ki Baat on All India Radio. At civic level, Ngo’s, religious groups, parents and teachers can provide psychotherapy and provide drug preclusion knowledge. 

CHILD ABUSE AT HOME

Dangers lurking at home

Homes are heaven for children where they feel safe and loved under the shield of their parents. The world maybe evil, but the child believes home is where his feelings and interests will be considered and respected lifelong.  In early age children are the reflection of their parents. They walk on the path as their parents, grasps and learn things from home. Home is the chief school. The child molds its character according to the environment generated.

But what if danger for children is lurking at home itself? The child grows up in a violent and negative environment and shapes himself in the same way. This can be substantiated treacherous as the child may suffer emotional damage or rise up in viciousness being a delinquent juvenile.

A substantial rise in reports and registration of the case of incest rape, the National crime data divulges and confirms the trend that majority of the victims are minors. The statistics available on domestic violence and other forms of violence against women are startling. Our long cherished norms of home being safe place for children are worn-out, the world outside is where they walk in peril from strangers.

Fathers are the breadwinner, who safeguard the honor of the house, although will some fathers and other family members continue abuse their children?  Negative tables are turning up with regularity—a father beating up his daughter to death publicly in Karachi for not making round chapattis. Parent’s role is guiding their children and improving them when erroneous. Beating up a child for not making a round chapatti is paramount explains of child abuse costing death of minors for puerile reason. For some children the 

Cinderella story turns true where step-parents beat up children black and blue, burning with cigarettes or not taking care of their welfare.  They “harm through omission,” states to a disappointment to provide the child with satisfactory nourishment, apparel, housing, schooling, supervision or health care, providing the parent or guardian is financially sound.

We have child right against violence for protection for children. But this is not ideal. Education and information of rights in early age should be mandatory for child to fight back or seek help as much as possible then comportment the daily ferocity.  Child can also seek help from JJB. 

SAYALI PARAB

JUVENILE JUSTICE FOR CHILDREN

Protecting the juvenile justice: child rights to be cared and protected

Child is a gift of god from the heaven and there is no keener exposé in our society’s soul in the various ways it treats its child. We as a society tend to protect our children from severe punishments and wrong doing irrespective of the gravity of the act.

The juvenile justice system in India intends the legit response with reverence to two groupings of children, explicitly those who are 'in conflict with law' (an individual below the age of 18 years accused of doing an offence); and those 'in need of care and protection' (children from deprived and marginalized sections of society as well as those with different needs and vulnerabilities). Juvenile justice policy in India is well-thought-out around the Constitutional order prescribed in the language of Articles 15(3), 39 (e) & (f), 45 and 47, in addition to numerous international agreements, such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

This act is majorly to provide care, protection, guidance and rehabilitation for the delinquent child. The juvenile act of 2000 puts forth that the accused child will be sheltered in correction home during the case proceedings.  The basic aim of the act is to improvement and reformation the children and not to chastise them with harsh treatments. The rudimentary ideology for enforcing an act with a kind of discrepancy attitude was to protect children from distressing evil effects of criminalization, penalization and stigmatization, in short, the “prosperity” of the children and not to reprimand them. The guilty child will be held in the correction center for 3 years.

As the law says; to protect the child, the law also states that a child cannot be handcuffed in public. The act strictly prohibits anybody calling or treating the child as a criminal. After arresting, the child cannot be put behind the lockups. Castigating, criticizing, thrashing can form a case against the concerned police rewarded by suspension. Child exposed to media costs a fine of 25000 rupees. The act of JJB has the responsibility to protect the child’s identity in all manners. Recently, cops in Telangana were flaked to handcuff the delinquent child and were asked to submit a report regarding the same which was revealed through a video, this exploited the JJB act.

The Delhi gang rape case involving a juvenile has created a buzz all over. People up roared to lower the age of juvenile justice from 18 to 16 to provide stringent punishment to accused included in the gang rape.

As to my opinion, do we ever know the reason behind crimes committed by the children? What influences them to take this treacherous footstep? Many children are victims themselves, victim of poverty, victim of physical abuse, victim of being orphan. Such categorized children are inclined to commit crime due to dearth of basic amenities. At times children commit crime, but the master mind is an adult forcing children into erroneous doing with a thought that juvenile crime is a “get away’ pass from a crime for the concerned adult and the child involved. Children below 18 as are matter of fact are ‘immature’ in all sense. Stringent punishments as adults can affect them psychologically or can have an adverse effect of shaping them into an even worst delinquent.

Children below 18 years of age are perfectly categorized. When a child turns 18 years he/she is considered as an adult and to some extent matures then in lower ages. I don’t support children getting away from punished but the level and type of punished is what that matter. Children below 18 years should be eschewed from those of adults. The children are the future of our country they should be reformed into a better person. We as people and the judiciary should take decision thinking but every child who has been stuck in the dip of crime without their knowledge.

SAYALI PARAB

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT

My teachers teach ABC: assault, beating, castigating!

One good teacher in a lifetime may sometimes change a delinquent into a solid citizen. But what if the teachers are felonious?  Clearing the fuzziness, we all have had prodigious teachers who have taken efforts to silhouette our life in optimistic way in some point of our life. However, there’s an institutionalized problem is a tradition student-teacher relationship in Indian schools. The teacher’s job is to discipline and punish the students. This indubitably crafts a rigid milieu in class.

The more extreme forms of this classroom authoritarianism are corporal castigation and sexual abuse. Two months ago, 45 years old computer professor sexually assaulted a girl in third grade. In June, a teacher in Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu shadowed a girl student to the toilet to assault her.  We see such stories as aberrations which appear routinely in our newspapers. As a matter of fact, these are just reported cases that we come across in the news channels and papers. If we had to check the actual regularity with which these appear you will see an entrenched culture of sexual abuse. This is a fear for rustic parents to send their daughters to school. These sexual assaults are nothing short then rape.

Children go to school every morning being apprehensive about the oiled cane. How happy those children are on Teacher’s Day who has been the victim of corporal punishment tearing the ear drum? Not all teachers go attacking children for incomplete homework. On 2^nd October 2015 a Varansi boy was burnt by blistering iron road for not completing his homework. The teacher burned my hands & feet with an iron because I didn't do my English home work: Krishna, student (source twitter). A 13-year-old girl who was allegedly punished by her school teacher to strike a taxing stress posture with a brick on her back in the sun died after five days of high fever, likely fallout of the corporal punishment she underwent.

Are the teachers possibly teaching our nation’s young minds that they live in a violent society? If we consider teachers as most important in our national, we can blame them equally for the traumatized state of young children. Ideal teachers teach the students to make a world a better place and live without fear. Conversely, teachers have made their schools a nightmare for the innocent.

SAYALI PARAB

Child right to relax and play

Children estopped from playing; hindering child development?

When meeting a group of amigos during a school-reunion, all you reminisce and feel nostalgic about is the good old days.  Tracing derrière where playing with friends was the only priority. It’s the time when we as individuals develop pleasurable memoirs. We accrued echoing to that fun-time childhood we lived. Playing is also very crucial for child’s enjoyment and social, physical, intellectual and emotional development.  When approached the kids asking what is central in their lives playing and friends capped the list.

Playing permits children to socialize and choose their own friends. Well, we are those lucky ones to squeeze and juice the advantages we gained from freedom to play. Many people think playing is optional and not fundamental. At this day, parents have hard-pressed their children in the battle of budding competition. Parents demand their children to be an all-rounder, be it in sports, education, cultural activities and technology. Children are suffering a loss of leaving behind their innocence; they are just hopping rabbits, which jump from one class to another. They are so imprisoned that children are missing the most important phase of the lives. Cheers to the merciless competitive civilization.

To discuss the topic in more intense, poverty is also one reason depriving children from playing and relaxing. We have habitually come across deplorable sights of small children working at off road Dhabas, sweeping the floor and tables clean, serving us with hospitality albeit, they might be famished. Children are enforced to misstep their childhood just for few penny. Family financial crisis burdens the child with responsibility to run their family living. Children are handed over with mops instead of toys. Most of the child labours work a day and night shift snatching away their time to relax and leisure.

For making the current situations nastiest, now children are even barred to play in their society complex. In a recent case, the grandmother and mother of an 11-year-old boy who live in a housing complex in Borivali have complained to the Child Rights Commission that the society in which they stay has barred children from playing and cycling in an open section of the complex. Norms have been put up and nay child flouting the norms would be fined. This, the CRC application says, has been done to fright the children and is having an effect on the children - all between 9 and 12 years of age. A report prepared by the recognized psychiatrist Dr. Harish Shetty on Heramb (the child victim living in the society whose grandmother and mother filed a complaint) a few days after the family acknowledged this communication says the boy needs "counseling and observation across at least 12 weeks for his anxiety." It records that the child is scared of going down and playing in the compound or meeting his friends there as "he may be arrested and put in jail."

The application says, "The child who was happy-go-lucky is now a bundle of nerves. Since he is frightened to be dragged to police-station on playing in the society compound - he often used to remain silent for hours together. He suffered from fever for four days and was unable to concentrate on his studies." (Online newspaper source).

Play during early years helps the children to diminish children’s fretfulness and bellicosity (aggression) and build their self-esteem and self-reliance. Further, it helps kids to recuperate from trauma and tackle with different situations. Children learn solidarity playing in groups.

so many benefits bind with playing to nurture and develop the child, how can playing be “optional” and not fundamental? The Convention on the Rights of the Child in the United Nations General Assembly was adopted long back and is recognized internationally. But it would be naive to think that all children in the world are able to exercise this right. In today’s intricate global problems, we must not forget the unique needs and pleasures of childhood or the power of sport and play in transforming lives. When broods play, the world triumphs! 


SAYALI PARAB