MARGAO: On Children’s Day Eve, the Goa State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (GSCPCR) in a letter to Women and Child Development (WCD) Minister Vishwajit Rane has sought the government’s intervention to strengthen child protection systems.
“A current analysis of the system indicates that Goa lags far behind with poor implementation and underutilisation of the Integrated Child Protection Scheme, now Mission Vatsalya, for over a decade,” said Peter F Borges, GSCPCR Chairperson in the letter.
Mission Vatsalya Scheme was launched as a roadmap to achieve development and child protection priorities aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Borges lamented that for the past two years, as a monitoring and recommendatory statutory body, GSCPCR has made little headway, with several recommendations not being complied with.
“Today, children face myriad risks such as separation from parents and caregivers, family violence, sexual abuse and exploitation including online, disabilities, bullying and violence in schools and communities, justice-related issues, living and working on the streets, dangerous labour, substance abuse, trafficking, HIV and AIDS, and inability to meet basic needs,” said Borges.
“Lack of proposed interventions like aftercare for those transitioned out of institutional care, sponsorship scheme to prevent parents from institutionalised care and promote family-based care, delay in creating demand for foster care, failure to identify and address child protection issues in communities, poor justice system, for over a decade has weakened the ecosystem and failed to provide safety and safe environment for children to grow and thrive,” he added.
“The shoddy response to children in street situations, despite a well-designed standard operating procedure for rescue and rehabilitation and direction by Supreme Court is of great concern as it has increased the risks and vulnerabilities in children leading to abuse, neglect, exploitation, abandonment, and isolation,” he added.
