Chapter: Gist of Press Information Bureau Articles

Topic: Children’s Right to Protection – Emerging Structures and Mechanisms

Q. What types of issues which are being faced by children?

Issues facing such children are manifold and include:

• child labour and child abuse;
• displacement and unsafe migration;
• trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation,
• domestic work,
• beggary,
• organ trade and
• Pornography.

Q. What are the core objectives of ‘Protection of Sexual Offences against Children?

Besides, the National Commission on Protection of Child has been working since 2007 to address the issue of violation of Child Rights’. The Ministry, of late, has introduced a Bill in the Parliament on Protection of Sexual Offences against Children.

Q. Which law primarily provides for structures and procedures necessary for ensuring the well-being of children?

The primary law for the care of protection of children is ‘the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000’ which provides for structures and procedures necessary for ensuring the well-being of little understanding of the needs of children and addressing them was not a priority of all concerned.

Q. What is Integrated Child Protection Scheme?

The Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) was introduced w.e.f. 2009-10 to address this need for a comprehensive country –wide programme to enable creation of a safe environment for children, which is conducive to their growth and development, was, thus, keenly felt.

Q. What are the specifications of Integrated Child Protection Scheme?

• ICPS has brought several piecemeal child protection programmes namely (i) A Programme for Juvenile Justice; (ii) An Integrated Programme for Street Children; and (iii) Scheme for Assistance to Homes [Shishu Greh] to Promote In -country Adoption, under one umbrella with enhanced norms and introduced new interventions.
• The Scheme inter alia aspires to reduce the vulnerability of children to abuse, neglect, exploitation, abandonment and separation from their families.

• ICPS is holistic in nature and besides creating legal and administrative structures for taking care of the children and, thus, accelerating the implementation of the JJ Act, supports setting up of Homes for providing them quality care, promoting non-institutional care and setting up of a Child Tracking System including a website for missing children.

Q. What services are fall under ICPS?

The services which are being strengthened/introduced and provided support under ICPS are:

• Institutional Care: To improve the quality of Institutional Care, financial assistance is being provided for construction, upgradation and maintenance of Shelter homes, Children’s homes, Observation homes and Special homes set up under the JJ Act and Specialized services for children with special needs (disabled & children affected by HIV/AIDS. 1199 homes of various kinds are already supported under the Scheme. After Care services for children leaving the Homes on attaining the age of 18 years are also provided for under ICPS.

• Non institutional care: Several non-institutional mechanisms such as Adoption, Foster Care, Sponsorship and also community based safe spaces for care and rehabilitation such as open shelters in urban and semi urban areas provided for under the Scheme. These will emerge to play a major role in the care and protection of children with little or no family care. 143 Specialised Adoption Agencies and 104 Open Shelters are already functioning under the Scheme.

• Emergency out-reach services: ‘CHILDLINE’ 1098, a dedicated telephone outreach helpline for children, is being extended under the Scheme to new locations and will cover the entire country in a phased manner. The number of locations covered by Childline has doubled in the last two years and the service is now available in 164 cities/districts across the country.
• Child Tracking System: Another major initiative under ICPS is the establishing of a Child Tracking System, a web enabled MIS on all children accessing protection services, including a website for missing children, to address glaring gaps in data related to protection of children.

Q. How many Statutory & Service Delivery Structures are being established under ICPS?

The Scheme also strengthens statutory services/structures such as Child Welfare Committees and Juvenile Justice Boards which are to be set up under the JJ Act to ensure the child’s right to justice and protection. Considerable progress has been made under ICPS in establishing these statutory bodies. 548 Child Welfare Committees (240 before introduction of the Scheme) and 561 Juvenile Justice Boards (211 before introduction of ICPS) have so far been established all over the country.

Q. Which bodies are set under ICPS to ensure quality of services?

To ensure that proper focus is maintained on child protection, and quality of services is up to the mark, the Scheme places emphasis on creating a service delivery network, exclusively for child protection, which would cover the entire country. These include:

• The Central Project Support Unit at the Central level,
• Child Protection Societies at State and District levels and
• State Adoption Resource Agencies for implementation at the ground level.

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