DOES THE STATE EVEN CARE FOR ITS UNDERPRIVILEGED CHILDREN?

At a crucial moment when North Goa SP Priyanka Kashyap had to choose between her uniform and her bigger role of a protector and future care giver of children, she chose to be North Goa SP. In a cosmos devoid of sentiments, this was perhaps expected. Therefore it came as no surprise when her tersely-worded press release in drab official-esque language, on the evening of Tuesday (September 2) came from the recesses of law books rather than from the recesses of her heart.  The release was a sturdy defence of how no laws were broken but indeed embraced in granting bail to Motilal- a man employed by UK nationals Graham and Tricia Philips Clarke who ‘raped’ the minor girl, even though the sex was consensual, eloped with her “while she was under the care and protection of the home. Kashyap had only one point to prove. That the police did not grant him bail as she remained silent on a host of other issues we have dealt with in our subsequent story.

But Kashyap is merely a creature of passage, who occupies official chairs where uniformed officers sit with uniformed disconnect between law and reality. What came out so strongly in this incident as the layers and layers of questions remained unanswered, is that hundreds of children in close to seventy such welfare/children’s homes, many unregistered till now, live under the supposed protection of these homes, but with absolutely no control or audit of the government. And while Herald casts no unsubstantiated aspersions on the couple who ran Light House, a UK-based charity, they certainly need to account for the conduct of their staff Motilal, who had an affair and sex with a minor inmate of their institution. Their own act of what can only be called ‘fleeing, by closing down the home – even temporarily – while investigations had begun, brings them firmly in the radar of custodial interrogation. But that again is another story. The murky universe of care homes is a bigger concern and a subject of larger questions. Does Goa have the will and the wherewithal to track other Motilal’s in the system?

This is not the first and will surely not be the last instance of the authorities and their enforcing arms not taking a strict stand on this, feel insiders given that so many have come up in the State, right under the nose – but not under the control –  of the local authorities. Hundreds of underprivileged and in conflict with the law children are lodged in these shelter homes or drop-in centres or day/night care centres out of the line of sight from the law enforcement agencies. At times, the funding of these shelter homes too is questionable.

The controversial NGO Light House, registered as Trust in 2007 was operating as shelter home without an official licence. Though the management had applied for its registration as shelter home in October 2012, questions are being raised as to how the institution was allowed to operate hitherto without permissions. 

 Section 34 of JJ Act violated

Section 34 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act makes it mandatory for every shelter home to register with the government, but many bypass the law. According to legal experts, a shelter home is not allowed to operate until the government is satisfied through field inspections it adheres to every bit of the relevant laws. 

Children needing care are not produced before Child Welfare Committees.

This is followed by admission of children who are in need of care and protection. In this case, a registered shelter home has to produce every such child before the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) that further conducts an inquiry and issues an order whether or not the child needs this attention. In matters where a child hails from other State, a separate study is carried out. 

“If the CWC finds the child fit, he/she is sent to the family. If not, they are lodged in the shelter home,” said the legal expert. This assumes extreme significance in the light of the fact that not only were the children of Light House Charity not produced before the CWC, this did not happen when 27 of them were later admitted by another home run by El Shaddai Charitable Trust.

 Where lies the lucre? 

Foreign donations?

However, in Goa where setting up shelter homes has turned out to be a lucrative profession for various reasons including the receipt of foreign donations; various illegalities have been noticed. Sources in the CWC told Herald that various shelter homes avoid this process and instead lodge children without the knowledge of the government. This certainly increases fear of trafficking of victims in the wrong hands.  

It was only after a public interest litigation filed by an NGO, the High Court of Bombay at Goa directed registering every shelter home. Till date, about 49 more have got themselves registered, which raises the figures to 52. 

However, there are still a few NGOs which have still not applied for registration while about 10 are at various stages of permission before the Women and Child Department. 

The authorities have to take action whenever illegalities noticed and send a message. If not, such things will not stop especially as some of these homes have persons with influence on their managing committees.

At the end of the day, the lives and future of children are being played with, when you have a 15-year-old girl having to undergo an abortion, due to absence of any protection in an unregistered care home, with no government supervision.