Children are the future pillars of society and a worthy asset for a nation in a larger perspective; And so they have to be cared for, their talent nurtured and their creativity given an outlet through education. A child’s development is a sequence of events for which there are no ‘second chances’. Once missed, the window of opportunity closes forever. We must ensure that each and every child gets the best start in life so that they will survive and thrive and meet their fullest potential as possible. Lack of necessary nutrition, healthcare, education and safe environment for children can cause life-long and irreparable damage to their bodies and minds.
With widespread starvation, India is home to the largest number of malnourished people globally. Children are among the worst hit by hunger, and consequently more than a third of all the children in the country are stunted. As the word implies, their bodies (and indeed, their minds) are less developed than they should be for their age. Besides, more children under the age of five are dying in India than anywhere else in the world. A recent estimate puts this figure at over 1.5 million children a year – over 4500 child deaths a day due to hunger. And for many children who escape death, the poverty of their parents means they are compelled to seek employment earlier in their lives.
Yes, starvation due to poverty is the main reason behind India’s child labour force, employed mostly in unorganized and informal sector. This include agriculture, domestic work, daily wage earners at hotel/restaurant kitchens, motor vehicles repair garages, food processing and even fireworks producing establishments, besides other small scale industries. It is in this sector that children are most abused through forced labour, trafficking, slavery besides physical and sexual exploitation. This inhuman abuse of children thrives in the absence of regulatory policy, accountable institutions and an apathetic society. Unfortunately, it is on the shoulders of this ill-treated, mostly unpaid, physically and sexually abused workforce that we hope to achieve ‘real and sustainable’ national economic growth. This is both logically and ethically shameful.
Indeed, children are victims of multiple violations due to systemic and structural failures as well as criminal negligence on the part of the authorities concerned. Primarily, there is a failure to prevent trafficking of children into forced labour due to ineffective implementation of the RTE and social welfare schemes to the children and their families. Children’s vulnerability is heightened as they fall out of the safety net of their home, school and community and into the hands of goons who are fearlessly involved in child trafficking in the absence of rule of law, empowered by political complicity and the all pervasive corruption in the public administration. A UNICEF report says that hazardous child labour is a criminal betrayal of every child’s right as a human being, and is a serious offence against our civilization.
Moreover, India is facing a horrific increase in various other crimes against children in general, especially rape of young girls and even of toddlers. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data indicates that sexual violence against children is steadily on the rise since the last about two decades. It is utterly shameful that we have failed to ensure a safe environment for our children, despite the necessary Union Budgetary allocations for child protection, besides various institutional structures and mechanisms already in place such as NCPCR, various schemes and laws such as ICPS and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The basic issue in curing sexual abuse of children is the delays in prosecution and disposal of POCSO cases.
Recent proceedings in the Supreme Court (SC) have revealed that a whooping 1.5 lakh cases under POCSO Act are pending before 670 designated courts all across the country. This works out to an average of 224 cases pending before each court. While 33000 cases were registered each year, average disposal rates were static at 24% between 2014 and 2018 leading to pendency of cases going up over time. Delays in POCSO cases disillusion victims and embolden rapists.
Such an abysmal scenario on the ground is at odds with the legislative changes that prescribe increasingly stiffer (and counter-productive) punishment like death penalty for rape of minor children. The huge pendency in POCSO cases calls into question the strategy of legislating more and more without underlying systemic improvement. The SC has now directed that new courts be set up with Central funds to take care of appointment of judges, prosecutors, support staff like counselors and creation of child friendly courtrooms. Indeed, children are particularly vulnerable victims of crime, and it is incumbent upon a humane justice system to dispose off their cases on a priority basis.
Nelson Mandela once observed that there can be ‘no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children’. So does the fact that a huge number of India’s children are facing an inhuman life means that the quality of the ‘soul’ of our society stands on test?
(The writer is a freelance journalist)
