Monday Musings: Children are dispensable if they are poor

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By Amitabh Srivastava, Copy Edited By Adam Rizvi, The India Observer, TIO: The year gone by left its imprint on time in many ways as also it’s cinema. One of the most disturbing films released on Netflix was Sector 36. Starring the rising super star of  of the happenings in a house in village Nithari in Noida (Uttar Pradesh) back in December 29, 2006 where around 23 poor children suddenly went missing. This is not the first film on this topic but the latest.

Later their bones and skeletons were found in the drain behind the house and police investigations revealed that the owner of the house Mohinder Singh Pandher and his servant Surinder servant guilty of raping and even eating body parts of these children.

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There were also charges of the duo dealing in selling the organs of these children. The duo were awarded death for the long drawn out case but the Allahabad High Court later absolved both for lack of evidence.

However last year the parent of one of the dead children appealed to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against this and now the Supreme Court of India is seized of the matter. The film reminds us of the poor status of Police investigations and judgments of various courts in India, specially if it involves poor children.

The very first act of getting justice anywhere is lodging an FIR which remains as difficult as ever even today unless one goes for online registration, which the poor have no access to. Had the Noida police lodged the first FIR of a missing girl in the Nithari case in 2006 instead of turning away the mother by saying, “Your daughter must have eloped with her boy friend”, we would not
have seen the massive human tragedy that remains a huge Black Spot in independent India.

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This film however goes a step further. Here the servant when confronted by evidence by the police confesses to all the charges but tells the investigating Police officer, “Even if I say that I am guilty of all the charges you have made, what difference does it make to society.

What would children from this strata of life have achieved in life. No one will miss them”. That is a grim statement which many may not agree with because lots of children from very poor families have reached highest positions through their hard work and diligence. Newspapers are full of stories of their struggles and how they have done their family proud.

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Children as Mr. Amod K Kanth tells us, “are the most vulnerable section of society because they have no legal rights”. In India even talking about child rights evokes strange looks from their teachers, parents and legal guardians even thought children comprise 39 per cent of the total population. Even in educated and aware families child rights appears an alien topic. “We are spending our hard earned money on bringing them up, their education, getting them good jobs, arranging their marriages with partners who will adjust with our family values and traditions.

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What are the rights the NGOs talk about in seminars and TV discussions” genuinely puzzled parents ask. Much worse is the fate of thousands of missing children, street children, victims of sexual assaults, child marriages, parental violence and those engaged in child labour unfortunately sold out by lazy parents to agents so that they become a source of income at a time when they should be in schools or playgrounds. Some of these who have been victims of violence in childhood take to crime either through gangs or forced by adverse circumstances. It is these children in Conflict with Law whose crimes are exaggerated by the media out of proportion for their TRPs as Breaking News which antagonizes the whole so-called civilized society against what they call Juveniles. We as a society have totally failed our children because we don’t realize that the proportion of these children in Conflict with Law highlighted by the National Crime Records Bureau annually is so miniscule that it takes away the focus from the much larger category of children who need Care and Protection. We as a country are so indifferent to the rights of children that so far we don’t even have a clarity on what is the exact age of a child. It is different for RTE, child labour and for those involved in heinous crimes.

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Whether we like it or not it is a fact that India is among the 196 countries which are signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child formulated in 1989. India signed the Convention rather early in 1992 though surprisingly the United States remains the only exception mainly because their laws allow children to be handcuffed and thrust into adult jails at a very early age. Many of them have harrowing stories of being incarcerated for 30-40 years among adult criminals. We in India exempt children up to 7 years from any punishment even if they commit a murder. For children up to 18 years we have Juvenile Justice Boards to deal with children in Conflict with Law because we don’t want to take the risk of putting them in adult jails.

Those found guilty of heinous crimes are kept in Reform Homes for a period of three years after which they are given an incentive to make a fresh beginning in life. This had led to lot of hullabaloo in the country when the minor involved in the Nirbhaya case was released because the laws at the time of crime the age of minors to be 18. But except for this concession to the Children in Conflict with Law, which is a major one as far as Child Rights is concerned, the major concern for all stake-holders is that the Child Rights guaranteed under the UN convention are nowhere on the horizon.

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These include the 4 Basic Rights-

A. Non discrimination
B. Best interest of the Child
C. Right to survival and development and
D. Views of the Child

All these should have been normally available as human beings to all children and particularly the weaker and marginalized children known as Children under Care and Protection. I feel we journalists have a special role in this to wake up all the stake-holders by writing, organizing seminars, drawing the attention of policy makers to through these media interventions because the United Nations for all practical purposes has turned into the three monkeys of Mahatma Gandhi who have closed their eyes, ears and mouth.

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But that will only be possible if journalists get the real feel into the sufferings of children by going to the ground level, interviewing the victims following all the norms of reporting such children and putting their findings across to the policy makers. A lot of people are turning sceptical about the importance of media in the current scenario but being an old timer I believe the media does bring changes provided it has done its home work. A very big part of this mission to change things is not to be overwhelmed by the severity of the problem.

For instance, in December 2012, like all those taking out candle matches and deflating DTC buses at Boat Club in Delhi I felt that what was done to Nirbhaya on that chilly December in Delhi was the worst a woman could suffer in recent memory. Exactly an year later I happened to be in Prayas Juvenile Aid Centre Society where they were running a full fledged Rape Crisis Intervention Centre with sexual assaults being the norm rather than an exception.

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Studying each FIR closely and classifying the findings we could come out with factual conclusions about the minimum and maximum age of victims and aggressors, their social, educational and family family backgrounds and the behaviour of the Delhi Police at the police station. All this along with data collated from across the world helped us to bring about a booklet that remains handy for further studies on the subject even after so many several years. The quest for justice is not like Maggie the “two minute noodles”.

Despite the fast track courts the punishment of the culprits in the infamous Nirbhaya case took seven years to come. Change takes time, sometimes even decades. Compare the punishments meted out to children even today in the US, the biggest preacher of Human Rights, to our Juvenile Justice Act and the JJBs as mentioned earlier, to deal with first time Juvenile crime. I also remind my American friends whenever I get a chance that despite their very strong media freedom laws due the Second Amendment to the Constitution and a robust federal system of Governance in their 150 years of existence they have not had a Woman as Head of the country while much smaller countries in Asia and of course India have repeated them.

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Back to child rights-we in India have the all powerful Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act 2013 that overpowers all other laws to protect minors in our country. Major changes have also been made in recent years in the Child Labour Act  and several other laws.

And of course the Criminal Law Amendment Act 2013 that criminalizes trafficking for the first time which came about as a result of media pressure, seminars, group discussions, candle light marches and an unprecedented movement launched by students all over the country in December
2012.

Also Read more from this Author: Monday Musings: “How Far We’ve Come…”

Curated and Compiled by Humra Kidwai

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