CHILD RIGHTS PROTECTION – A FICTION (By- Dr.M.Vidhyalakshmi)
CHILD
RIGHTS PROTECTION – A FICTION
Authored By-
Dr.M.Vidhyalakshmi
Introduction
Children
constitute over 400 million of the one billion plus population of India. It is
indeed and important factor in shaping the future of the nation if childhood
can be endowed with the minimum requisites for healthy growth and development.
Unfortunately, it is not happening today despite some of the key initiatives of
the government and a number of significant interventions of the judiciary and
international as well as civil society organizations. Children are the
potential beneficiaries who stand to make the greatest gains from the
sustainable development. Lack of
sensitization, commitment, enforcement mechanism and trained personnel is the
major obstacle in providing child rights. There is a need for a comprehensive
law on children that integrates the four sets of civil, political,
socio-economic and cultural rights of every child- their right to survival,
protection, development and protection.
Advocacy
is much needed at different levels: the individual, child, parent, family,
community, and society. Several child rights have been the result of persistent
advocacy campaigns emerging out of the efforts of social action groups at the
grass roots, social movements, people’s organization, regional and national
coalitions.[1]
The
law, policy and the practice of child welfare has undergone a significant
change from the historical perspective. It was an established common law
doctrine that the father had absolute rights over his children. After this, the
welfare principle was reflected in the dominant ideology of the family. The
Indian traditional view of welfare is based on daya, dana, dakshina, bhiksha,
ahimsa, samya- bhava, swadharma and tyaga. The essence of which were
self-discipline, self-sacrifice and consideration for others. The rights
approach is primarily concerned with the issues of social justice,
non-discrimination, equity, and empowerment. The rights perspective is embodied
in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989[2]
which is a landmark in International human rights legislation. India has
ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child in December, 1992[3].
The
word, ‘child’ has been used in various legislations as a term denoting
relationship, as a term indicating capacity, and as a special protection.
Underlying these alternative specifications are very different concepts about
the child. These include children as a burden which invokes rights to
maintenance and support, regarding children as undergoing temporary
disabilities making for rights to special treatment and special discrimination,
treating children as especially vulnerable for ensuring rights to protection,
recognizing children are resources for the country’s development necessitating
their nurturing and advancement.
Women And Child Development:
Efforts
were made to strengthen the ongoing approach of converging the basic services
of health, nutrition and pre-school education towards promoting the holistic
development of the young child through Integrated Child Development Scheme
(ICDS), which continued to be the major intervention during the Ninth plan for
the overall development of the children. The main aim of the scheme was to
cater the pre-school children below 6 years and expectant and nursing mothers
with a package of services i.e immunization, health check-ups, referral
services, supplementary nutrition and health education.
Balika Samriddhi Yojana:
It
was launched to extend a special package of girl children belonging to families
living below the poverty line to ensure that all girl children enter into
schools.
Kishori Shakthi Yojana:
It
was introduced as an enriched version of the scheme of adolescent girls being
implemented as a part of ICDS to improve the nutritional and health status of
girls in the age group of 11-18 years and to equip them with vocational skills
so that they can be gainfully engaged.
Udisha: It was launched to strengthen the on-going ICDS training
programme into a dynamic, responsive and comprehensive training cum human
resources development programme. For the implementation of the UDISHA, World
Bank had extended financial assistance to the extent of Rs. 600. 50 crore[4].
The Scheme of Creches and Day Care Centers for children of working and ailing
mothers, being a non-expandable scheme, maintained the same level of
12470creches benefiting about 3.12 children. However to meet the growing demand
for more crèches, a National Creche Fund (NCF) was set up in 1994 with a corpus
of Rs.19.90 crores.
Right to Family Environment and
Adoption:-
Adoption
is the act of establishing a person as a parent to one who is not in fact or in
law his child. Thus adoption signifies the means by which a status or legal
relationship of parent and child between persons who are not so related by
nature is established or created. [5] Adoption is widely recognized that it can be
characterized as an almost worldwide institution with historical roots
traceable into antiquity.
The traditional approach for adoption
was institutionalization of destitute, neglected, marginalized children and
children in especially difficult circumstances. This approach resulted in the
child being separated from the family environment. The trend today is towards
non-institutional services. During the last few decades, the significant role
that a family plays in a child’s nurture and his her physical, psychological,
mental and social growth, development has been increasingly realized. [6]
Foster care provides temporary
substitute care for children. It is different from adoption where the child
severs all ties with his own natural parents. In foster care, the child is
placed in another family for a short or extended period of time depending on
the circumstances. When a family is undergoing a temporary crisis, like the
death of a parent or a sudden illness, children experience a lot of stress and
tension. They may need to be removed from their natural home to prevent heir
neglect. These children can be placed in foster families till the crisis is
over. Unwed mothers and the single parents can also be helped through foster
care[7].
Indian Adoption Laws:
The
laws concerning adoption and guardianship of children in vogue in India are the
Hindu i. Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956,
ii. The Juvenile Justice (Care and
Protection) of Children Act, 2000,
iii. The Guardian and Wards Act,
1890,
iv. The Hindu Minority and
Guardianship Act, 1956,
v. The Hindu Succession Act, 1956.
A Protective Environment For
Children:
One of the fundamental changes the
new India is seeing is a realization that governance is not a matter of welfare
but a matter of right. The people are awakening to their rights and where they
do not get the service they are demanding it through public interest
litigations, socially conscious journalism, and civic forums and so on. Child
protection means the creation of a protective environment in the home, school,
community and society so that children are protected from any kinds of harm and
harmful situations.
While
children’s rights are human rights, the need to focus on the child and the
rights of the child specially, has been recognized and world over. The
Constitution of India recognizes the vulnerable position of children and their
right to protection. Therefore, following the protective discrimination, it
guarantees in Article 15 special attention to children through necessary and
special laws and policies that safeguard their rights[8].
India’s National Policy for children 1974 provides a framework for policy and
planning for children.
In 1992, India acceded to the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child, committing itself to take measures to
ensure the survival, protection, participation, and development of its children[9].
At the World Summit for children in 1990 India adopted the World declaration
for Survival, Protection and Development of Children. Additionally India
adopted the Optional Protocols on the Involvement of Children in Armed
Conflict, Sale of children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography. It also
reaffirmed its commitment to children by adopting the Millennium Development
Goals and the objectives of World fit for children.
The Approach to Child Protection:
The
Government’s approach to child protection so far has addressed largely those
children who have already missed the protective net and fallen into difficult
circumstances. ‘Child Protection’ is about protecting children from or against
any perceived or real danger or risk of their life, their personhood and
childhood. It is about reducing their vulnerability to any kind of harm and in
harmful situations. Child protection is integrally linked to every other right
of the child. The failure to ensure children’s right to protection adversely
affects all other rights of the child. It must relate to children’s capacity
for self-reliance and self-defense and the roles and responsibilities of
family, community, society and state.
Recent Initiatives
The
Ministry of Women and Child Development[10]
is the nodal Ministry for all matters concerning children including planning
and implementation of policies, programmes and other enabling measures for
their survival, development and protection. Some of the significant initiatives
in the recent past and planned future are detailed as follows:
1. Child Budgeting:
Children under the age of
18 constitute 40 percent of India’s population. The very survival prospects for
girls in particular are getting grimmer, with successive census figures
revealing decline in the sex ratio. Despite a booming economy, investments in
social development are insufficient and are also not yielding changes rapidly
enough. The survival prospects for girls in particular are getting grimmer with
successive census figures revealing decline in the sex ratio. Child budgeting
represents an important policy analysis tool that can help us take stock of our
development investments for children and identify glaring gaps in the resource
investment. As a proportion of GDP [11](Gross
Domestic Product), these investments are particularly low and increases are not
commensurate with the overall increase in national productivity and
income.
An analysis of the broad
trends in budgetary allocations in India shows that as a result of the growing
economy social sector expenditures have been increasing both as a proportion of
aggregate government expenditure and real expenditure since 1990s. The child
Budgeting exercise conducted by the Ministry of Women and Child Development
revealed the persisting low level of fund allocation for the measures affecting
children with resources for child protection the lowest of all.
2. Children’s Commission:
In its effort to implement
the provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child UNCRC, the
Government of India formulated the Commission for ‘The Protection of Child
Rights Act’, 2005, which provides for the constitution of a national commission
and state commissions for the better protection of child’s rights and for the
matters connected therewith. The functions of the commission are to examine and
review the legal safeguards provided b or under an law for the protection of
child rights and recommend measures for their effective implementation, prepare
and present annual periodic reports, inquire into violation of child rights and
recommend initiation of proceedings in such cases, etc.
3. National Plan of Action for Children,
2005:
The National Plan of
Action for children recognizes that UNCRC shall be guiding instrument for
implementing all rights for all children up to the age of 18 ears. It advocates
that the rights of the child are articulated in the Constitution of India and
UNCRC[12]
should work in synchrony to ensure all rights to children. It also mandates
the Government of India to ensure all
measures and an enabling environment for survival, growth, development and
protection of all children, so that every child can realize his or her inherent
potential and grow up to be a healthy and productive citizen. This calls for
collective commitment and action by all sectors and levels of governments and
partnership with families, communities, civil society and children themselves.
Conclusion:
All
over the world, recognition of child protection as a human rights concept has
been fairly recent. The literary works of the times have only romanticized
children and their conditions has viewed children as their father’s property.
Legally also, the father is see as the natural guardian of the child. The fact
of working children, children in institutions and orphans living in inhuman
conditions is not new to any civilization. The child rights movement in itself
is young, much younger than the women’s movement. However ever since the
movement for betterment of a child’s conditions started gaining momentum and
acquired strength, there has been a paradigm shift from care and nurturance to
protection in a healthy and caring environment. Social justice and the right to
life and well-being form the new ideological basis for action.
In
India, the concept of child rights and the need to create a protective
environment has started to gain ground. However, there is still a great deal
that needs to be done. The foremost thing required is the understanding of the
fact that as a country with the highest child population in the world, and one
that wishes to rest on the laurels of its human resource, it is essential for
India to put in place the protective environment and the child deserves without
any further delay. Besides the role of the government, the role of each and
every individual, all communities and families is critical, as mindsets must
change for an improvement to come about in the lives of our children. Just as
peoples have come to understand the importance and relevance of education, and
there has been a strong movement in the country in this regard, with people
willing to even contribute as tax payers towards ensuring that all children are
in school, protection of children must also receive similar priority. In this
movement, all have to take part and cooperate with the government and work
towards a coordinate effort.