Children's Day and the Unfinished Task of Ensuring Child Rights in India

DIPAK KURMI

November 14, the birthday of India’s first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, is being celebrated all over India as Children’s Day. It is celebrated on his birthday because of his endless love and affection for children. It is one of the best days of the year for children in India. It is celebrated with lots of events and activities performed by kids. We organize various programmes and different activities to cheer up children and make the day special for them.

India has about 480 million children. The country has adopted several policies and Acts for the protection of child rights, but in reality, millions of children are being deprived of their fundamental rights; they are abused, neglected, and exploited in India. Every child, irrespective of their economic status, has rights in the areas of survival, identity, development, protection, and participation, including in urban, rural, and tribal settings.

High infant and neonatal mortality rates, serious threats from infectious diseases, gender inequality, pre-birth sex selections, and the prevention of girl child birth and female foeticide are major concerns in child survival. Data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) 2019–20 shows that 38.4 percent of children under the age of 5 years are stunted (height-for- age), 19.3 percent of children under the age of 5 years are wasted (weight-for-height), 7.7 percent of children under the age of 5 years are severely wasted (weight-for-height), 32.1 percent of children under the age of 5 years are underweight (weight-for-age), 3.4 percent of children under the age of 5 years are overweight (weight-for- height), and 67.1 percent of children under the age of 5 years are anaemic in India. Girls are denied an equal right to life. Millions of children lack protection against hunger. The government must invest in child survival. Children should have access to preventive, protective, and curative services ensuring good-quality health needs, nutrition, education, and universal immunization against preventable diseases. They have to provide better public health services like safe drinking water, sanitation, environmental protection, and combat hunger and malnutrition by ensuring food security for families and nutritional security for children.

Birth registration and identity are a child’s first civil rights. India acknowledged the international standards that recognize all people up to 18 years old as children in 1992. Every child should receive services that support early childhood care and development. They have the right to adequate housing and shelter.

Though free and compulsory education is a fundamental right for children in the 6–14 age group, according to the 86th Constitutional Amendment, it is not being protected as many of India’s children of school-going age are not in school. Children with disabilities or special needs are seriously underserved, and only 5 percent of them receive services of any kind, and only 2 percent of them can access schooling. Health care, nutrition, shelter, and security should be provided for underserved children. In India, the problems of socially marginalized and economically backward groups are immense, particularly amongst children in urban slums, street and working children, children of construction workers, etc. These children cannot avail themselves of the benefits of development opportunities. They become addicted to psychoactive substances and get involved in antisocial activities. They should be provided with safe shelter services and opportunities for relevant education and vocational training. The budget allocation for children must be enhanced. Government agencies need to increase investment in primary education. Quality standards of education, teaching content and methods, and curriculum reforms should be ensured.

Child abuse is a basic violation of child rights. The World Health Organisation defines child abuse as a form of physical and/or emotional ill-treatment, sexual abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, commercial or other exploitation, resulting in actual or potential harm to the child’s health, survival, and development. Child abuse is more than bruises and broken bones. While physical abuses are shocking due to the scars left behind, emotional and sexual abuses also leave deep and lasting scars. Ignoring children’s needs, putting them in unsupervised, dangerous situations, or making a child feel worthless or stupid is also child abuse. Regardless of the type of child abuse, it causes great harm to the child. All forms of child labour are the worst kind of child abuse and a negation of basic child rights. At the age of playing and learning, they need to work as labourers because of hunger. Some of them need to take care of their houses, provide treatment for sick parents, and look after their brothers and sisters. They have to work in unhealthy and unhygienic conditions in other families, tea stalls, city buses, trackers, garages, and industries at minimum wages. Some of them are being physically tortured and mentally abused. Although child labour cannot be abolished in the presence of poverty, it is necessary to ensure that working children are not exploited. They must get time for education and receive health care.

Children have the right to be protected against all forms of abuse, neglect, exploitation, and corporal punishment. The state needs effective legislation to punish and deter all forms of abuse, exploitation, and trafficking in children, as well as prenatal sex determination, foeticide, and infanticide. Physicians in developed countries are required by law to report cases of child abuse and neglect. A similar piece of legislation in India that makes child abuse reporting mandatory for physicians is welcome.

Not only are atrocities against children on the rise, but they are also targeted in communal violence and insurgency as never before. They also suffer discrimination and denial in post-riot situations. Children of indigenous and tribal communities suffer neglect, discrimination, and alienation and are affected by armed conflict and other civil violence. They become orphans, losing their parents or relatives in communal violence and insurgency. Lack of family or adult support for such children results in their being denied basic services. Children have the right to special protection against trafficking, communal and political violence, arm conflict, terrorist activities, and migrant situations.

Children should have access to contact services to help them in cases of emergency or distress. The emergency toll-free phone service for children in distress (Child Line 1098) should be expanded and awareness generated about such help lines. Orphanages and shelter homes are required to assist children without families. Adoption should give first priority to the best interests of the child concerned.

Child protection services must reach rural areas, where a large proportion of the population resides. In villages, panchayat officials should be given responsibility to ensure that basic education, nutrition, healthcare, and sanitation are available for proper development of every child in their villages. The panchayat should be duty- bound to ensure that every child is in school and thus protected from agrarian and allied rural occupations as a part of family or individual child labour.

The NGOs and government administrators should reach out to the neglected, deprived, and abused children for their comprehensive needs, which include education, healthcare, protection, and rehabilitation. Celebrating Children’s Day only on November 14 cannot protect children’s rights in India. The celebration of Children’s Day is just a call to every Indian to protect our little ones from any harm and save their future for the bright future of our country. There is an urgent need to create an enabling environment through legislation, schemes, and an enhanced budget to address the problem of child abuse and neglect and to protect the fundamental rights of children in India, and then only the relevance of celebrating Children’s Day will be successful. Today, on Children’s Day, let us join hands to make people aware of the need to protect the fundamental rights of children in India.

(Views are personal. Email: dipakkurmiglpltd@gmail.com)