Charter on the Rights of the Child Child Relief and You March 20, 2004 A third of India's citizens will not have a say in determining who forms our next government when the country goes to the polls this year. They live in every state, practice every religion, speak every language and come from every caste. The promises made to them 57 years ago at Independence remain unfulfilled. Their rights are violated millions of times each day. They, India's children need us - we who have a vote, we who determine policies and influence opinion - to speak up in their name. 57 years after independence the situation of the Indian child is truly bleak: · 60 million Indian children under the age of 6 live below the poverty line · Less than half of India's children between the ages of 6 and 14 years go to school · Every second child is malnourished · Almost 2 million children die each year before reaching their first birthday · Children of 100 million families live without water at home · Religious fundamentalism and violence have increased and our children are subjected to textbooks that have been rewritten along communal lines While a few enjoy the fruits of progress and development, the vast majority continues to experience deterioration. The nation's income has grown, yet regional disparities and poverty have increased. Despite the growth in GDP, the share of government spending on health and education has not increased. The repetition of the tired cliché that children are our nation's assets is increasingly hypocritical. Indian children have been continually denied the rights guaranteed to them by our Constitution and by the United Nations Convention, which India is a signatory to. Will we let them down yet again this year? Or will we demand accountable, transparent, secular and pro-people governance of our elected representatives? Isn't it time to make amends to our children? As an Indian organisation that has worked to restore child rights for 25 years, CRY - Child Relief and You seeks your support in urging political parties and governments in power to focus on the following issues that affect every Indian child, while fashioning their agenda: 1. Ensure a universal definition of "child" to include all persons under the age of 18. 2. Increase government expenditure on children. Specifically increase expenditure on education to 10% and health to 5% of GDP. 3. All children age 6-18 years, without discrimination, should be in formal, full-time schools that provide quality education. All children below 6 years should be in anganwadis. The government should ensure that all children complete schooling up to Class 10. 4. Complete prohibition on all forms of child labour across sectors including agriculture. 5. Revision of the National Policy for Children (1974) to make it more comprehensive and in line with the Constitution and the United Nations Convention of Child Rights. Establish the National Commission for Children with statutory powers. 6. Redraft the Free and Compulsory Education Bill to remove sanctions on parents. Concerned governments to face penalty for failure to provide free, compulsory education to all. 7. Formulate and implement a comprehensive rights-based policy on food security for all with extensive legal safeguards. In order that no child goes to bed hungry and no child be born underweight and stay undernourished. 8. Coverage of the Public Distribution System be expanded to include all families below the internationally approved poverty line (1 US $ per day). 9. Immediate provision of nutritious mid-day meals in all primary schools and extension of this scheme up to Class 10 with inclusion of out-of-school children. Make available Integrated Child Development Services to all children under the age of 6, as per the Supreme Court order of November 2001. 10. Nation-wide employment guarantee programme for all adults in order to ensure that children do not have to work and can go to school. We call upon you to speak up on behalf of our children. We urge you to hold representatives, political parties, policy makers and most importantly yourselves accountable for ensuring child rights for all children in the country. Let's vote for child rights!
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