Speaking at inaugural of the two-day Juvenile Justice Conference being held at Jabalpur, being hosted by High Court of Madhya Pradesh and UNICEF, Acting Chief Justice Rajendra Menon said that “Children’s issues should be dealt within children’s rights framework. Judiciary should interpret the law and deal with issues connecting with ground reality, not merely in letter and spirit.”
Justice JK Maheshwari said, “Children inspire tenderness and need for care. Juvenile Justice is primarily duty of the state. He added that we are grateful to UNICEF for co-organising the conference. And we are here introspecting the gaps in the implementation of laws for children, and to suggest ways to improve them. There are many gaps and we need to tackle them, including lack of infrastructure, institutional gaps, insensitivity. If we don't address them, many children could become deviants. Coordination among us stakeholders is crucial. Children's rights should become our priority. No child should ever enter the Juvenile Justice system for the second time.”
Manish Mathur, officer in-charge of UNICEF, Madhya Pradesh appreciated the leadership of high court in taking up the issue of justice for children. He in his address spoke on the critical bottleneck like coordination among stakeholders, delayed and poor funding, weak monitoring and weak capacities to address issues of Juvenile Justice.
Jaishri Kiyawat, Commissioner Woman and Child Development, Government of Madhya Pradesh briefed about key programs and achievements of the State in child protection- anmol, lado abhyan, one stop crisis center, school Chalo abhyan, etc. and that State is committed to implement the recommendations from these conferences.
PJ lolichen, Child Protection Specialist UNICEF Madhya Pradesh spoke on the convention on the rights of the child, and how they need to influence the implementation of Justice for children.
This is third of the three regional conferences and the recommendations from the regional conferences will be placed before the State, at a State level conference.
Around 200 participants including high court judges, State Government Officials, Inspectors general, SPs, Juvenile Justice board Judges, CWC, Police, NGOs and academic institutions are participating in this conference at Jabalpur.