The country’s childcare centres housing juveniles are a far cry from the Digiital India that is being promoted by the Government. leave alone a computer, many child welfare committees and Juvenile Justice Boards are without even basic office stationery.
Moreover, while there is no central database of such childcare institutions, the State Governments too have no data on their numbers, the children therein and relevant information about these children. looking at the sorry state of affairs, the Supreme Court on Friday passed a slew of directions to the Centre and State Governments asking them to register all child welfare centres and update information of children in them by December 31, 2017.
The directions came as part of a suo moto proceeding taken up by the Supreme Court in 2007 on a media report telling the story of how children in Government run orphanages and institutions are being sexually abused and being trafficked in connivance with the staff of these institutions.
Stepping in to solve the problem, the Bench of Justices Madan B lokur and Deepak Gupta felt there was need to direct immediate registration of all childcare institutions operating in States and union territories. Fixing a deadline of December 31, 2017, the Bench said, “The registration process should include a data base of all children in need of care and protection which should be updated every month. While maintaining the database, issues of confidentiality and privacy must be kept in mind by the concerned authorities.”
The Court was assisted in passing these directions by advocate Aparna Bhatt, who pointed out the lacunae in the operation of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act and other related laws .
As on date Bhatt submitted, Union or State Governments have no information on addresses of childcare institutions, the person in charge or the principal officer, and full details of the children residing in these child care institutions. This would require a massive computerisation drive, she opined.
Shockingly, the Court found that many Child Welfare Committees (CWC) or Juvenile Justice Boards (JJB) had no computer while some complained that very often stationery is not available and on requisition, the State Government or the local authority, “leisurely” processes the request.
This is a "very sorry state of affairs," said the bench, as it held, "This step-child attitude cannot be permitted to continue since these statutory bodies are vital for having necessary supervision over child care institutions within their jurisdiction."