There is no Nodal Officer for labourers representing Jharkhand at the nation Capital. Revealing the information as one of the major cause of mismanaging migration of child labourers from Jharkhand to New Delhi, Indian law Institute’s Governing Council Member Nina Nayak related this drawback with the recent rescue of two Jharkhand girls early this month in Delhi.
“like every state, Jharkhand too has a Resident Commissioner and Deputy Resident Commissioner to manage migration of labourers from its native state. Unfortunately, a dedicated Nodal Cell with an officer of labourers is required to manage the exodus of girl trafficking from Jharkhand to Delhi,” Nayak told this correspondent at the inaugural ceremony of two day National Seminar titled ‘Securing Childhood:
Challenges, Opportunities and Strategies’ at Xavier Institute of Social Service (XISS) on Thursday.
To tackle the increasing migration of girls from the state, Nayak (former member of National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and Karnataka State Commission for Protection of Child Rights) felt the need of fostering skill development programmes among female students and teachers in government schools of villages.
However, Jharkhand has gradually made a development in its Infant Mortality Rate which has risen to 38 percent. Nayak mentioned that the state is among the eight out of 22 states in India successful in having established State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (SCPCR) in India.
But, the state marks low rank in population of underweight children which has increased up to 56 percent. Nayak along with Chief Guest of this programme State Assembly Speaker Shashank Shekhar Bhokta and United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) Jharkhand Chief Job Zachariah expressed concern over the worst status of Child Marriage in Jharkhand. Notably, Jharkhand is the third state in India with maximum cases of child marriage.
“Since the formation of the state 14 years back, only four cases of child marriage have been reported though every year 50 percent of the girls in the state are getting married before the age of 18,” Zachariah said.
Also, Zachariah pointed the poor status of birth registration of babies in Jharkhand leading to difficulty in identifying children victimized in trafficking outside the state. He said, “56 percent children are registered in Jharkhand of which only 25 percent have birth certificates here.”
Bhokta and Nayak spoke about the increasing crime against women issues after Delhi’s Nirbhaya gangrape on December 16, 2012. “In villages, even today 40 percent child marriages are held between the age of 15 to 16 years because the parents are in secured about their daughters. Social initiative is important.” Nayak who had interacted with the minor rapist in the Nirbhaya gangrape said that illiteracy and poverty are basically the reasons of indulging in such offences.
This seminar will give opportunities to scholars from different field to understand the efficiency of all legal and social measures for protection of child rights and what innovative strategies should be proposed to the policy makers to address all issues surrounding the child protection.