One of the ambitious plans to start special residential schools in two districts for bringing human trafficking survivors into mainstream is in limbo. Unable to find a safe place (building) to start special residential school in capital city for trafficking survivors, the officials appear clueless about the project. The project was likely to be taken up on a pilot basis in Ranchi and Chaibasa districts in 2017.
According to the plan, the arrangement for starting special residential schools was supposed to be done on a temporary premise for some time until a permanent place or land is identified for the purpose by the respective district administration officials. However, none of the concerned departments have moved an inch towards this direction.
Citing different reasons like problem in acquiring a safe setup within urban area for opening special school here, beefing up security, including other factors, where the rescued kids will be kept ensuring all basic arrangements, DSE Ranchi Shivendra Kumar said, “The project was expected to get complete a year ago but regardless of making several attempts, by far, we have been unable to find a place here in Ranchi where the trafficking survivors can be accommodated. Soon a meeting with district administration officials has been planned to discuss about its progress.”
Meanwhile, DSE Ranchi added, “Safety issue is another prime reason for the delay in taking up this project. So far, Chaibasa district too has been unable to acquire a temporary building for starting this project. We have written to several other departments regarding this. Earlier, one minority school at Kanke was ready for the project, however, it backed off. The minority school principal was not willing to give a written consent to us; hence we had to cancel our plan.”
The State that registers quite a number of human trafficking cases with no substantial rehabilitation plan certainly, the special residential schools for human trafficking survivors would serve the requirements of several girls rescued from the menace of trafficking. “If we are able to find a well-flourished set-up, for which attempts are being made, 100 trafficking survivors will be admitted in the special schools in both the districts at a time with an aim to recuperate them completely,” Kumar added.
Notably, the project initiated by Jharkhand Education Project Council (JEPC) in collaboration with a few other departments in January 2017 is to ensure and keep a track on number of kids that are rescued over the years from across India and are brought back to Jharkhand apart providing quality education to rescued girls covering both academics and psychological aspects.
As per the earlier proposal, the council had also planned to create special posts for trained clinical councilors/ psychologists at these special residential schools. Also, training of girls under skill development mission project, inclusion of some qualified professionals from different fields to boost up the morale of rescued kids through different activities keeping psychological traits of rescued girls was on the cards.