In the absence of knowledge of different legal issues, people, especially students fall prey to various anti-social elements.
To curb various issues related to violation of Child Rights, Police Department in association with Diya Sewa Sansthan, an NGO organised a legal awareness camps at Bethesda Girls High school in the Capital city on Tuesday to sensitise children about various legal aspects.
Information related to laws like POSCO Act and its use, Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act, ordinances related to child marriage, human trafficking, law for eve teasing, child labour and bonded labourer laws were disseminated among the students.
Resource personnel also gave the details of few prominent helpline numbers to the students and also asked them to utilise the helpline numbers in time of distress.
Notably, the legal awareness campaigns will continue till November 14, 2016, with the aim to target maximum school children falling in the age group 10 to 15 years.
Experts too feel that organising such camps will atleast motivate kids to come forward and speak about the incidents related to any child rights violation. “We were happy to see that kids were responding honestly about the incidents that had occurred with them. At time, kids are often afraid to disclose any such incidents even in front of their guardians. We also gave them a set of seven questionnaires that dealt with the topics like trafficking, consequences of early marriages, role of Juvenile Justice Board (JJB), HIV-AIDS including other laws. Interestingly, after solving that, few children discussed about few incidents with us,” said, Sita Swansi of Diya Sewa Sansthan.
“Helpline numbers for missing children 09471300008, Child line number 1098 including other emergency contact details was also shared with the kids. On November 14, awareness campaign will be conducted at Albert Ekka Chowk to disseminate details about child issues and related laws,” added Swansi.
Mahila Police Station, Officer-in- Charge, Deepika Kumari, made students familiar with Indian Penal Code, Criminal Penal Code and other legal terms on campus premises.
Taking the initiative with utmost seriousness, police department officers too are monitoring the programmes, so that it can have long term affects on students.