Article Source : The Times of India

Author :

Date of Issue : Mar 10 2005

Title of Article : No Kidding

Details : Child rights in India is an issue which is rarely talked about even though we signed the United Nations Convention on the Right the Child (CRC) in 1992. The CRC defined four human rights of survival, development, participation and protection. However; children are not seen as a separate group with distinct rights and issues of their own and despite being a signatory, these rights are hardly ever enforced in India. Child Relief And You (CRY) CEO Ingrid Srinath speaks to Arcana Jahagirdar on why India needs to take child rights seriously:

Would you say that India is child rights friendly?

I don't think that in India there is an appreciation about child rights. I don't think people are looking at it in a holistic way. Even in the voluntary sector, there are still NGOs which work in service delivery mode. There are many who are not working in the rights mode. As a country we don't yet understand what child rights means. We are just about starting. At the policy level we are addressing the issue piecemeal. There is still no consensus on how to define a child. We have very elastic definitions.

How would you define a 'child'?

A child is someone who needs adult mentoring. At what age does the child have free choice? What's an appropriate age to make political decisions? What's an appropriate age for drinking? A child can technically approach the court in India but it hasn't happened. When it comes to children you want to err on the side of caution. You would rather have one year too high than lower. The threats just get worse. If one was to look at child trafficking, child pornography, there are new emerging threats. Today, a child online is at risk. Things like what guidelines one needs to follow as far as advertising which is aimed at children. I have worked in the ad world and know of children who felt that they were being short changed. In the West they are much more particular. There are far more protective measures there. Here it's quite unregulated.

India has the most number of working children. How do we tackle this problem?

Having good policies is a key starting point. Putting the law on the books is good, then you can get communities to be vigilant. But so many of our laws are archaic. For instance, our adoption law is called the Hindu Adoption Law, that's a law that needs to change. Child labour is not illegal in all industries whereas education is compulsory till age 14. So there is an inconsistency.

What would you say is the one bright spot in an otherwise dismal scenario vis-a-vis child rights in India?

One is the sheer scale of the problem.One-third of our population is poor. The other is diversity. There is layering of many historical injustices. Poverty is one layer, on top of caste, on top of gender and each has its complexities. One is trying to deal with each layer. Richer families are now likely to abort a female foetus because they have the means. Gender, caste are huge disparities. What is heartening are the children themselves who are performing amazing feats. The greatest change is that the rural, poor families have realised that education is important for their children but, of course, it is still tilted in the favour of the boys. Today, there is a huge demand at the grass roots for healthcare and education.If a community gets together to change something that unleashes a huge force.

Corporal punishment is still acceptable in India. What can be done to put an end to it?

I don't see why any child should be hit. A psychiatrist said, "What you do to a child, the child will do to society". That's my reason for, not believing in any kind of violence. It is how you see children: Are they assets/property or turned into adults as soon as possible. With any of these views you can abuse a child. We are yet to evolve as far as corporal punishment is concerned. Corporal punishment is the easy way out. It's also a function of how one has been raised.

You mentioned that putting good law is key to tackling various child rights issues. 'But how does one ensure that these laws are not misused?

We first need to come to an appropriate definition of what is acceptable. We will need to get to come up with an appropriate definition. The possibility of the law being misused is there. Dowry, sexual harassment laws have been misused, but does that mean that there shouldn't be a law? The checks and balances are that one needs to have in place to prove the case.

The needs and safeguards that urban kids have are different.

In urban areas we tend to entrust our children in private care without any safeguards. At CRY we try to prioritise our work and we focus our energies on that, but yes there are enough issues even for urban kids. For instance, ads that are beamed during prime time; one has no way of controlling what ads a kid sees. Development and protection is what CRY has focused on. There is also a singular focus on the girl child. Children in juvenile homes are completely unseen by us. Nobody knows that they even exist and unspeakable things have happened to them. We have completed fieldwork on juvenile homes and we will go to the government with recommendations. The common school system is something we are recommending.