LAW, AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION IN INDIA By: Awale Jayashree Lalasaheb
LAW, AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION IN INDIA
Authored By: Awale Jayashree Lalasaheb
Llm Ii,
Semester Iii
(2022-2023)
STREET
CHILD EDUCATION IN INDIA
Abstract:
Education plays a very significant
role in transformation and development of the individual and the society. The
Education system does not function in isolation from the society of which it is
a part. Unequal social, economic and power equations deeply influence
children‘s access to education and their participation in the learning process.
The street children‘s access to education is one of the major issues in most of
the developing countries. Since independence, India is facing several
challenges such as poverty, illiteracy, child labour, caste discrimination, and
child marriages. The street children were used as child labour in mining, and
illegal trade activities. However, India adopted several to strengthen the
access and right to education of the street children.
Keywords: Street
Children,Access to education,Right to education
INTRODUCTION
:
" The Sight of a child - a boy
or a girl without adequate food or clothing or house to live in always produces
a sense of shock in me as well as a sense of share " - Jawahar Lal Nehru
Today , we can often see a pathetic
situation of the rag pickers fighting to collect leftover food items near a
dustbin in a street corner in a metro city in which the site was very ugly .
unhygienic and full of stench and none dares to step in for the fear of getting
infected with deadly contagious diseases . Because we are so inhuman ,
insensitive and unconcerned for he fellow beings in the society . The main
focus of this article is to highlight the plight of the unfortunate hapless
section of our society and analyse about the ameliorative measures needed to
rehabilitate them for a better living in the society . Street children in our
country are in a sizeable number as such there is a dire need for the
governments at the Central and State level , N.G.O's other welfare societies
and organizations to render necessary services to uplift them and make them
acceptable to the society . Needless to say the street children in India is a
socio - legal issue which has assumed greater significance and got coverage in
the whole world . It is the right time for all the intellectuals , N.G.O's and
other voluntary organizations to come forward with strong determination , study
this problem on humanitarian grounds and render all assistance , guidance to
enable them to get away from such miserable
life , look for green pastures and
lead normal life . The street children problem can be studied from different
angles viz , Human Rights , Child Protection Laws , Fundamental Rights and
Directive Principles of State Policy under the Constitution of India , Juvenile
Delinquency Act etc so as to do justice to them wholeheartedly and mitigate the
loss caused to them economically and sociological at the very tender ages . to
man Today , we live in the world where there is an unprecedented increase of
human rights enunciations , and a growing disregard for these very rights . The
children's group is one of those vulnerable groups whose rights have been
disregarded reasons . The human rights of children has always been an area of
concern . It is at the most violation destructive end , where children are used
as labourers or workers or slaves in particularly hazardous conditions to repay
the debts incurred by their parents a grandparents . Many times the industrialists
engage child labourers to gain more profit without giving them adequate
remuneration . In situations of poverty , neglect , abuse , and desperation
-children run away from home and seek a better life on the street . It is a
normal human reaction to escape pain and suffering and to seek freedom and
safety .[1]
Street children ' move from their homes to the street from ages as young as
four , through the teenage years . Few have successfully completed their
schooling . and many suffer from gaps in their social and cognitive development
as a result . The psychologist Abraham Maslow contends that people with such a
social background often lose confidence in their most basic abilities , leaving
them disempowered and unable to make informed life choices . This assessment
applies both to the initial decision that children make to leave home and
escape to the street , and to the choice to remain living on the street that
they exercise on a daily basis , in defining street children , UNICEF
classifies them in two categories : street working and street living . Most
children that are commonly referred to as ' street children in the developing
world actually live at home but spend much of the day working in the streets .
This paper addresses only the latter category , street living children , for
whom their primary home is the street , who live independently and away from
their parents and without adult supervision and care . Most children move to
the street in search of realization of basic needs and not merely as an escape
from the tedium of home life or the desire to express their independence by
leaving 1 Maslow Abraham ( 1954 ) Motivation and Personality New York : Harper
and Brother 89.91
friends and family . Running away
from home is an act of resistance and an expression of absolute frustration
with life circumstances . It is the strongest possible response to poverty and
abuse that children in circumstances of deprivation and vulnerability can
exercise . Their home life and street life are both defined by two major forms
of deprivation of basic needs . that are essential for healthy child
development and socialization : a sound family life defined by supportive
parents and intimate relationships , and adequate social provisions of food ,
shelter , clothing , and quality schooling . Typically , neither in the homes
where they previously lived , nor on the streets where they have come to
establish a new life are these needs met².
Street children typically face danger
on a daily basis ; their lives are threatened in a myriad of ways . Human
Rights Watch reports that , Street children throughout the world are subjected
to routine harassment and physical abuse by police , government , and private
security forces , out to wipe the streets clean of a perceived social blight .
Street children face extortion , theft , severe beatings , mutilation , sexual
abuse , and even death³.
High rates of disease and infection amongst
street children are indicative of the health hazards of street life4.
A study of street children in Dares Saalam , Tanzania revealed the extent
of disease transmission and unhygienic living conditions amongst street
children
All mentioned having suffered from
malaria ( fever ) , diarrhoea , and stomach related illnesses , coughing and
other respiratory diseases ... Infectious diseases seem to be common among
street children . Certainly this is a result of a variety of predisposing
factors which include unsafe and unhygienic sleeping areas , the shortage or
lack of safe drinking water , unsafe food leftovers and food collected from
garbage bins ... They have difficulty accessing sufficient fresh and nutritious
food , clean water , reliable shelter , bathing and toilet facilities and
health care5.[2]
Protection
of Rights of Child: International Perspective
There is a lot of information and
data put together in the form of treaties, conventions, and international
resolutions, mainly from the United Nations (UN). It is likely that the numbers
are increasing with every next day, and the governments around the globe are
not putting on much effort into this issue. These are some of the most
paramount acknowledgements by powerful authorities on the suppression of rights
of street kids are as follows:
General Comment 21 on the Convention on the Rights
of the Child, issued by the Committee on the Rights of the Child in its
General Comment 21 “provides authoritative guidance to States on developing
comprehensive, long-term national strategies on children in street situations
using a holistic, child rights approach and addressing both prevention and
response in line with the Convention on the Rights of the Child.” The
convention highlights the basic and most intrinsic themes in the context of
street population: child rights approach; civil rights and freedoms; family
environment and alternative care; disability and health; education, leisure and
cultural activities; and violence against children and special protection
measures.
UNICEF (United Nations Children’s
Fund) in 2002 stated that there are more than 100 million street children
across the globe, although this statistics is fairly doubted by many agencies
and NGO’s who are righteously contributing. A UNICEF study found that almost
40,000 children die every day in developing countries, 25% of whom are in
India.
The general comment 21 was once again
highlighted in the agenda for sustainable goals for the year 2030 as the
secretary general’s report on SDG’s in the year 2017, which ignored some major
initiatives to be taken for the secluded children who mostly remain
non-surveyed and less informative about their own existential value. It has
been tried to fill this void at its best by introducing collection of reliable
data in an inclusive way.
UN Convention on Rights of Child also
called CRC/UNCRC was adopted
in 1989 on the anniversary of declaration of child of rights which is an
international statement on social, economic, cultural, civil and political
rights of children by the UN General Assembly. It is ratified by 196 countries
to ensure the fulfillment of every child’s basic needs to meet their complete
potential. In addition to this, CRIN (Children’s
Rights Information Network) established in 1983 also covers about the
protection of special children who needs more attention than others due to
their social and economic vulnerability.
Reasons of
Street children to work :
According to WHO, ‘while some
children are lured by the promise of excitement and freedom, the majority are
pushed onto the street by desperation and realization that they have nowhere
else to go.’ Some major push factors (that forces a population to leave) and
pull factors (that attract a population to a new place) are mentioned here as:
DRUG-ABUSE/ADDICTION:
A major force that pushes a little
child into the street world is the use of harmful drugs and other agents of
addiction. Mostly, small children from distorted families with wrecked
relationships also get convinced by agents of criminal gang in big cities. They
easily get exposed to dangerous elements by unknown strangers, and their
intakes without any prior knowledge about the substance make innocent children
easily fall into prey. In furtherance, the child gets forced in illegal
activities such as forced labor and sexual exploitation by criminal gangs.
MIGRANT
FAMILIES:
Our nation faces a colossal challenge
of migration every year, which displaces many families from their demographical
homeland, which in turn results in major unemployment. In search of livelihood
and earning money, many migrant families struggle to even afford basic
amenities, due to which working for the younger population become a compulsion.
Thus, children turn to juvenile crime.
LACK OF
EDUCATION:
Education is something which is a
necessity in today’s world, and making it accessible for poor kids is already
observed as a Herculean task by several governments. Right to education is a
basic right entitled to every child below the age of 14 years, but as stated
above also, the lives of street kids transforms into a horrific reality by
indulging within fragile and vulnerable groups having delinquent connections.
POVERTY:
The biggest factor that determines
the status of street children in India is the extreme level of poverty faced by
a huge portion of people in our nation. It has been noticed in the trend that
most of the children that leaves or runaways from their house do it for
strategic reasons, like in search for finding better living conditions and
mental health. In return of this escape, the usual result is violence,
separation from family members and slavery in its most cruel form.
Constitutional
provisions for the protection of Street children in India :
The key to development of any country
requires a healthy youth. But the void automatically appears at the stage,
where a specific community lags behind. It should be ensured that every child
gets to live a normal life without any inhumane intervention from the
surrounding. Although there is a plethora of constitutional provisions and
legal safeguards with respect to protect children against exploitation, abuse
and harassment, implementation is still a bigger fish. Social and economic
rights as declared by the Directive Principles of State Policy in article 37
states “DPSP shall not be enforceable by any court, but the principles therein
laid down are nevertheless fundamental in the governance of the country, and it
shall be the duty of the state to apply these principles in making laws.” i.e,
states have the flexibility to pass directives and orders for rights inclusive
of children, with special attention and uplifting of street kids in the
society. Although there has been a lot of contention between fundamental rights
and DPSP’s they both maintain an equal relevance in the legal mandate.
86th constitutional amendment of the
year 2002 guaranteed ‘right to education’ as a fundamental right in part iii,
and the same also inserted ‘Article 21. This particular landmark modification
made free and mandatory elementary education for the children between age
groups of 6-14. Other definitive provisions specifically aimed at children are
Article 24 Right to protect by
prohibiting any child from working in any hazardous employment like industries,
factories and mines till the age of 14 years.
Article 45 The state shall endeavor
to provide the right to free education, nourishment and care until a child
complete the age of 6 years.
Article 39(e): that the health and
strength of workers, men and women, and the tender age of children are not
abused and that citizens are not forced by economic necessity to enter
avocations unsuited to their age or strength
Article 39(f) that children are given
opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner and in conditions
of freedom and dignity, and that childhood and youth are protected against
exploitation and against moral and material abandonment.
The judicial bodies have interpreted
article 21 in different ways, one of which is that right to life means not
merely an animal existence but a right to live a dignified life and a
structural system to offer education at any cost, but the states fail to recognize
their duties which results in the neglected life of street kids. Furthermore,
Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act or Right to Education (RTE), 2009
was enacted by the parliament to improve the status of elementary education of
children, but it didn’t reach its goals due to mismanagement by the poor
performance of states, for instance inability to tackle the worsening situation
of school infrastructure.
The Immoral Trafficking (Prevention)
Act, 1956 is a law for which the power is given under article 35 of the
constitution to prevent prostitution of human beings. The Supreme Court
reinstated it in a judgment and considered the article to rehabilitate and
safeguard ‘child’ victims of prostitution. This has been said to keep the act
in conformity with UN Protocols that defines ‘trafficking in persons’ and
especially to punish the perpetrators in cases of women and children used for
the purpose of forced slavery, and bonded labor which makes a roadside kid
highly vulnerable as compared to others.
There is a gamut of state
legislations to define the term ‘street children’ like according to, The Street
Children (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2001 sought to define street children as
“the deprived with unknown parentage, abandoned and neglected children, including
destitute children of sex workers.” The same word constitutes a varied meaning
by UNICEF, which provides three operational categories of street children.
·
First,
children on the street “those children who have their families and homes and
who return to their homes at the end of each day”
·
second,
children of the street, “those children who have considered the street as their
home and seek shelter, livelihood and companionship on the streets and have
intermittent contacts with their families” and
·
last
abandoned children, i.e. “those who have cut off all the ties with their
families and are completely on their own. Special laws and legislations which
strike a balance between a just society and the current alarming situations
are:
·
The
Juvenile Justice Act, 2000
·
The
Child Labor Prohibition Act, 1986
·
The
Street Child (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2001
·
Charter
for Children, 2001
The following laws have been formulated in India to
ameliorate the civic life and tackle the problem of rapidly increasing street
children across the nation.
Non-uniformity and lack of precision for the term ‘street
kids’ is also one of the reasons why there is a lot of confusion and mishap in
the collection of data, which negatively affects the distribution of resources
among the targeted community, conducted by governmental authorities. A more
current and scholarly definition in a cross-cultural context is provided by
Aptekar and Stoecklin in 2014 where they have divided children in street
situations into street children from the developing world and homeless youth
from the developed world. International definitions (CRC) of the term differ
from that of national statutes, researches, studies and legislations, as a
consequence of which it becomes a challenge for the child to fall in the
structural criteria.
ROLE OF NGO’s IN FIGHT FOR JUSTICE:
UN ‘Street Children’ says that any boy or girl for whom the
street has become his or her habitual abode and/or source of livelihood and who
are inadequately protected supervised or directed by responsible adults. It
beckons towards a child who has made a dwelling wasteland his/her home,
considering their only source of income and livelihood either by money obtained
from begging or theft. To come into the rescue of these campaigns by non-governmental
organizations have reduced infant mortality, chronic malnutrition and child
trafficking, and increased access to primary and secondary education.
‘Consortium for Street Children’ which came up with an idea
to connect various networks and charities to co-operate and work as a single
entity for the noble cause of liberty for street kids. With the support from
UNICEF, it created history to become the first global agency to work for street
children across 135 nations.
Child Labor Action Network (CLAN) works with an aim to create
a peaceful society where all the children grow up as a responsible citizen of
the country. It acts as a ginger group along with the government and UN while
also train kids on child rights and mitigating children who are in conflict
with the law.
While working from the front, National Human Rights
Commission (NHRC), constituted in the year 1993 has committed itself to
safeguard the rights of street kids in the country. One of the best examples to
depict the action stance of NHRC is the judgment of M.C. Mehta vs. State of
Tamil Nadu and Ors where the court dealt with the case of bonded labor where
children were forced to work in dangerous factories and glass industries in
demeaning circumstances which violated article 45 of the constitution, and also
with the proper implementation of child labor protection (prohibition and
regulation) act, 1986. It is due to Commission’s continued efforts that
education has today become a Fundamental Right for the children between the age
group of 6 and 14 years vide 86th Amendment of the Constitution.
Role of judiciary In perspective aspect :
With the introduction of the 7th five-year plan (1985-1990)
which aimed to achieve the goal of ‘social justice’ with emphasis on
development in all sectors. This also gave an opportunity to the apex court to
uphold the constitutionally guaranteed rights of children. This was a
substantial step in the legal world, carrying utmost importance with it.
Lakshmikant Pandey v UOI The landmark judgment laid down
several procedural guidelines regarding systematic adoption of children to
prevent child labor, slavery and forced prostitution. In response to court’s
directives the central government proposed to create Central Adoption Resource
Agency (CARA), and supplementary legislations of Juvenile Justice (Care And
Protection of Children) Act, 2000 (amended in 2006) and the Juvenile Justice
(Care and Protection of Children) Rules, 2007.
Sheila Barse v UOI The court held that detention of destitute
or delinquent children below the age of 16 should be stopped as per article
39(f) of constitution, and also (if) trials regarding trafficking should be
held in juvenile courts rather than the general criminal court, with the
application of uniform children act throughout the country.
Bachpan Bachao Andolan v UOI In this case, the Supreme Court
stated about physical, mental and specifically sexual abuse against little
children who faced child abuse while working at a circus. The court entertained
the PIL under article 32 of the constitution, regarding the violation of
fundamental rights of children.
Thus, it has been ensured that no one is left behind to foster their kids with potential resources just because of their circumstances and financial growth. New parliamentary regulations, laws and judicial intervention are engineered to attain affirmative action to lower the plight of street kids in India, and also to accomplish the global standards.
CONCLUSION:
The youth, which is of the principal value in a developing
nation, should never be ignored by the central institutions. The concept of
‘streetism’ which showcases the penurious state of India is in the dire need of
improvement and quick action. Right from the beginning, street kids are
considered as an inferior subject and thus deprived of their basic fundamental
and human rights.
Bibliography:
[1] 1
Maslow , Abraham . ( 1954 ) , Motivation and Personality . New York : Harper
and Brothers , 89191 .
[2] Trussell , Robert . ' The Children's Streets : An Ethnographic
Study of Street Children in Ciudad Juarez , Mexico International Social Work .
42 , 2. ( 190 )
3 Human Rights Watch , 1- Human Rights Watch Report : ' Promises Broken
. ' Human Rights Watch . http://www.hrw.org/ children / street.htm
4 Lugalla and Mbwambo , 335-337- Lugalla . Joe and Mbwambo . Jessie
Kazeni . ' Street Children and Street Life in Urban Tanzania : The Culture of
Surviving and its Implications for Children's Health . ' 1999. Blackwell
Publishers .
5 Better Care Network, available at: UN CRC General Comment No. 21
(2017) on children in street situations | Better Care Network