Rights of
Children in times of COVID-19: A Policy Brief
“Children are not the
face of this pandemic. But they risk being among its biggest victims.”[1]
“...epidemics are not random events that afflict societies capriciously and without warning.
On the contrary, every society produces its own vulnerabilities.”[2]
- Introduction
What India is witnessing
today in the wake of COVID-19 will continue to disrupt life, aggravate
vulnerabilities, and erode the dignity of those already living on the margins. COVID-19 and how it has
panned out has resulted in gross violations of fundamental rights, exacerbated
existing vulnerabilities, and unleashed a pandemic of hunger and poverty where
there was none.[3]
Indelible images of the
toddler trying to wake his dead mother on a railway platform and the
12-year-old girl who worked on a chilly farm in Telangana, and died an hour
before reaching home after having
walking hundreds of kilometers to her home in Chhattisgarh, are heart wrenching
examples of the immeasurable losses of
life, livelihoods, and breakdown of families that each day brings.
Childhoods stand
threatened by the unprecedented social and economic disruption. Among those
severely impacted are children of migrant workers, children of daily wage
earners, child labourers, children in street situations, child care
institutions (CCIs), or conflict zones, children in need of care and
protection, children in conflict with the law, pregnant girls, children with
disabilities, transgender children, children living with HIV/AIDS, children
living in poverty, children in abusive, violent or exploitative situations,
children of sex workers and prisoners, refugee children, foreign children
residing in CCIs, children affected or likely to be affected by other natural
disasters, such as Amphan, floods in
Assam, etc. The lockdown period will also forever be marked by the millions of
people who in a bid to survive, undertook mass distress migration back to their
native villages.
While derogations from
human rights are permissible during lawfully declared emergencies, the right to
life with dignity is an inalienable right under the Constitution of India and the International
Convention on Civil and Political Rights, 1966 that India has ratified.
Obligations to ensure children’s rights under the UNCRC also remain. It is
critical that all children, across age groups, irrespective of caste, religion,
tribe, sex, gender identity, disability, place of birth, language, or other
status are reached. 
Urgent attention is
therefore required to prevent the situation from worsening for children, who
constitute 37% of our population. Societies and families’ inherent desire to
care for and protect children must be harnessed to prioritize them in our national
budgets, policies, and action to deal with COVID-19.
This policy brief
containing general as well as sector specific recommendations for Government
action was prepared through collective efforts and wide consultation among child rights organisations,
practitioners, academics and experts across the country. (The individuals and
organisations who have endorsed the brief are mentioned on the last page).
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To protect children’s well-being during and after
COVID-19, Central Government and State Governments need to ensure:
The judiciary should ensure:
National and State human rights institutions should:
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II. General Recommendations
- Ensuring Rights of
Children
State response to COVID-19
should take into account constitutional obligations, domestic laws, and
the four general principles of the UNCRC
- i.e. equality and non-discrimination, right to life, survival and
development, right to be heard, and best interests to be a primary
consideratiom. The restrictions imposed
by the lockdown have deprived several groups of children and families of their
right to a dignified life with access to basic needs, food, water, shelter,
education, protection from violence, and the protection from arbitrary
deprivation of liberty. The pandemic is having a discriminatory impact on children
based on their identity, location or situation and aggravating their
vulnerabilities. Children’s voices have been absent and efforts need to be made
by the government to hear their concerns and ideas for solutions. To ensure a
rights-based response:
● The legislature, executive, and judiciary should
ensure that the direct and indirect impact on children of their respective
response to COVID-19 and children’s views are considered and measures are taken
to mitigate adverse impact on children, particularly those experiencing
vulnerabilities based on their sex, caste, religon, tribe, disability, gender
identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity, language, social origin, place of
birth, HIV/AIDS status, or the identity or status of their parent or ther
political or other opinion, etc.
● Authorities, duty-bearers, and frontline workers
under various legislations and policies relevant to children should ensure that
the fundamental principles of juvenile justice are applied and no child is
stigmatized or discriminated against based on their COVID-status and/or their
sex, caste, religon, tribe, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation,
ethnicity, language, social origin, place of birth, HIV/AIDS status, etc.
2. Ensure Adequate
and Appropriate Resources
COVID-19
has amplified the already unstable economic condition of the country pushing
the government to prioritise its expenditure. The budget for children
(BfC) in
2020-’21 in the Union Budget is only 3.16% . This share has been
declining over the years as has the share for education, health and child
protection. The COVID crisis demands
much higher investment if we are to stem the inter-generational impacts that this country will witness.
The
basic entitlements for children have so far been delivered through a number of
centrally sponsored schemes (CSS).[5]
The result is a fragmented system that fails to account for the linkages
between nutrition and gender, water and sanitation, child protection,
education, etc. This situation is exacerbated by the peculiarities of CSS as
instruments of social policy financing; its centralised nature with fixed norms
and unit costs usually set at the national level which does not allow for
flexibility at the state and local levels. To ensure effective protection of children’s
rights while responding to COVID-19 and combat its harmful effects:
●
There should be no cuts in existing budgets
for children.
●
States need to
ensure effective utilization of existing
resources and flexibility needs to be provided to them in utilization of
Central Government funding.
●
Investments in public health, education, and child
protection need to be enhanced and
augmented where there is a shortfall. Efforts to enhance resources at the local
level should be intensified.
●
With migrants
returning to their home States, livelihood generation, poverty alleviation,
expansion of public health facilities and increased social security for
vulnerable groups is urgent and necessary. Therefore, the extent of vertical distribution of tax proceeds
needs to be revised upwards and more flexibility needs to be given to State
Governments in the Centrally Sponsored Schemes to address these COVID-19
related challenges.[6]
●
Allocations
must be made to enable urgent filling of
vacancies/re-purposing of additional human resources in the health care,
education sector, and child protection system to meet the challenges arising
out of COVID-19.
●
Budget
provisions need to be made for protection
of frontline workers, functionaries, and authorities against COVID risks,
PPEs, additional hazard pay, insurance, adequate and ongoing training,
supervision and support, as their well-being and protection is critical for
ensuring the provision of child protection services.
● Budgetary allocations are necessary to prepare schools for classroom teaching
while ensuring physical distancing, filling of all vacancies, and provision of
adequate facilities for handwashing, sanitation, and safe drinking water.
● Additional financial resources must be provided to CCIs for provision of additional items such as sanitization
supplies, protective gear, medication, additional nutrition to boost immunity,
additional clothing and bedding; capital costs to add infrastructure and
equipment to ensure health and safety of children.
● Additional financial resources must be provided for
infrastructural modifications, PPE, and other materials required for courts,
JJBs, CWCs, DCPUs, SJPUs, police stations, and Childline to meet the physical
distancing requirement and safety protocols.
● Budget needs to be augmented for community level child protection mechanisms and their
training and development.
●
Existing
guarantees (eg., MGNREGA, PDS) need to be augmented and creatively used to
enhance social security for children and families.
●
The WASH sector needs higher public investment to
ensure effective protection of children from infection. The government must
also improve fund utilisation under Swachh Bharat Mission – Urban (SBM-U) and
build capacities of local government functionaries and Gram Panchayats.
●
State Labour
Welfare Boards must use the Building and
other Construction Workers Cess Fund for health, nutrition, protection, and
care for children of all construction workers irrespective of their
registration in the State Labour Welfare Board.
3. Ensuring Monitoring of Impact of and Response to COVID-19
on Children’s Rights
Multi-stakeholder
monitoring of children’s situation and State responses is critical to ensure
that responses to COVID-19 are in keeping with obligations under the Constitution,
domestic laws and international Conventions ratified by India, as well as the
Sustainable Development Goals. For this purpose:
● The Hon’ble Supreme Court of India should consider
reviving In re: Contagion of COVID-19
Virus in Children Protection Homes, Suo Motu Writ Petition (Civil) No.4 of
2020, so as to enlarge the scope of the petition to all issues affecting
fundamental rights of children during COVID-19 and to monitor compliance with
its directions.
● A Parliamentary Ad-hoc Committee may be constituted
to study the impact of COVID-19 on children and consultations should be held to
hear children from all sectors and genders directly.[7]
● The National and State Human Rights Institutions
(HRI), especially NHRC, NCPCR and SCPCRs should set up a compliance dashboard providing information on compliance with
various administrative and judicial directions issued for COVID-19. They should
jointly examine the impact of COVID-19 on children’s rights, particularly
their right to food, health, education, protection and safety, right to be
heard, and access to justice; issue recommendations to the government, and
approach the High Court or Supreme Court for necessary directions.
● In the face of reports of increase in violations of
child rights, including trafficking of children, it becomes essential to ensure an integrated and effective MIS for
collection, analysis and dissemination of evidence on matters related to
children and COVID-19.
● Juvenile
Justice Committees of the Supreme Court and the High Courts should
urgently hold a review-cum-consultation
meeting with all stakeholders including civil society organisations to
assess the impact of COVID-19 on children’s rights and recommend immediate
measures to be taken by concerned stakeholders, including the JJBs, CWCs,
relevant Departments, and the Legal Services Authority.
● All Ministries/State Departments involved in
COVID-response, should provide disaggregated
data on their website indicating the impact
of COVID-19 on children based on their caste, tribe, sex, gender identity,
religion, disability, ethnicity, nationality, etc., and the benefits they have derived under
existing Schemes or response measures.
● State Governments should prepare protocols for
inspections of Child Care Institutions by JJBs, CWCs, and Inspection Committees
in light of physical distancing and other norms.
● Civil society organisations and academic
institutions should undertake independent evaluations and assessments of the
impact of COVID-19 on children and their rights.
4. Strengthen community-based action and oversight
There is a need to
mobilize and mandate communities in a participatory manner- one that promotes
their leadership in identification of needs and arriving at solutions to
support children and families. This would include local authorities,[8]
functional village level groups/committees such as Village Child Protection
Committees, School Management Committees (SMC), SHGs, VHSC, Nehru Yuva Kendra
fellows, adolescent girls’ groups, village youth groups, parents groups, local
leaders, community elders, residential cooperatives and Resident Welfare
Associations. The government must
provide information and tools in an audio visual format to orient and sensitize
them to take lead participatory interventions mentioned below at the local
level.
Existing Child Protection
Committees or community level structures/groups should apply a child and family
protection and well-being lens and support Panchayats/Municipal
authorities/competent authorities in order to:
● Monitor
the protection and safety of children, including those with disabilities, within quarantine
facilities and whether segregated living facilities with sanitation for women
and children are provided.
● Work towards ensuring that all children, families,
expectant mothers, in the community, including those without ration cards, have
access to food grains and cooking supplies,
drinking water and milk, or make it available through locally run community kitchens.
● Facilitate
access of all children and families outside the current net of social
protection, particularly migrant
workers returning to their homes, to benefits
such as ration card, PDS, MGNREGA, ICDS, Anganwadi services (immunization and
nutrition, Supplementary Nutrition Program (SNP), Take Home Rations (THR)
neonatal care, Mid-Day Meal, schemes for girls under Beti Padao Beti Bachao umbrella, cash transfer schemes such as
sponsorship, pensions (disability, widow, senior citizen) scholarships, Indira
Aawas Yojana (IAY); schemes under Swachh Bharat umbrella, school enrolment,
civil registrations, skill development for youth.
● Be alert,
map, anticipate and act to prevent and respond to prevent children from falling
out of family and community safety nets particularly for school
drop-out, exploitation, trafficking for labour or sexual exploitation, domestic
violence, family conflict, emotional violence and structural discrimination and
exclusions based on sex, gender identity, disability, religion, caste, sexual
orientation, and class. Report cases, make referrals, monitor and follow-up
cases of children in the community.
● Facilitate
the formation of children’s groups
where they share their concerns and raise their voices. It is essential to
enable children’s voices to be heard and their concerns addressed.
● Assist
with the collection of data of families and children in the age group of 3-18
years, who would need to be
enrolled in anganwadis and schools.
● Liaise
with the local authority on issues which require intervention/ support, especially related to health (functioning of
health Sub-centers and PHC, access to reproductive health services), education
(restarting schools with adequate safeguards to prevent spread of Covid-19,
ensuring space for all children aged 6-14 in school), anganwadi services
(restarting with adequate safeguards, ensuring space allocation, and receipt of
provisions) and child protection (access to block
CPC/police/CWC/courts/JJB,/DCPU, compensation, and other child protection
services).
● Proactively
facilitate dialogue to build a supportive environment for children and families returning to the village, provide peer support to
parents and emotional support to children. Encourage sharing of resources to
help families settle and cope with the emotional and financial shocks.
● Create
awareness and display information
prominently about CHILDLINE 1098, DCPU, CWC, JJB, Police 100, 102, women’s
helpline, and escalate cases to the
formal system and follow up/monitor the progress in the cases.
● Create awareness about new protocols incorporating
COVID norms in functioning of child protection institutions, police, CWCs, JJB
etc
● Create
awareness to ensure that no one is stigmatized or discriminated against based
on their identity or COVID-status.
III. Specific Recommendations
- Ensuring Children’s
Right to Health & Nutrition
● Universalise
health and nutrition services for all children without attaching any
conditionality or eligibility requirements to it. Ensure equity and inclusion of all children irrespective of
gender, caste, class, ethnicity, rural-urban-tribal geographies, disability
conditions, and other differences.
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“A fistful of rice with sugar or
salt is a standard meal for 10-year-old Asha Yadav these days. On better
days, her mother adds some potatoes or dal to her plate. A resident of
Eastern Uttar Pradesh’s Gonda district – among the most backward and poorest
in the state’s agricultural belt – Asha is among the 95.1 million children whom the lockdown has deprived
of midday meals at school. On school days, Asha would get
at least one wholesome meal – rice, vegetables, milk and fruit – under the
Indian government’s Midday Meal Scheme. Since March 24, school has been shut
due to the Covid-19 lockdown, and with it, midday meals.” Sadhka
Tiwari, Indiaspend.com, et.al, “The fallout of India’s lockdown on child
malnutrition will be felt long after the Covid-19 crisis”, Scroll.in, 9 June
2020, https://scroll.in/article/964033/the-fallout-of-indias-lockdown-on-child-malnutrition-will-be-felt-long-after-the-covid-19-crisis |
● Recognise ICDS
as essential service and reopen anganwadi centres immediately to provide
crucial growth monitoring, immunisation, cooked meal, and nutritional
counselling services, with adequate safety protocols to prevent COVID infection
for anganwadi workers, and women and children. Ensure delivery of services
home, especially for SAM children, if Anganwadis are closed.
● Provide sufficient quantities of dry rations (food
grains, eggs, milk powder and medicines) and take home rations to children under three years, as well as
pregnant and lactating women, irrespective of registration with anganwadis.
● Recognise Anganwadi
workers and helpers as essential workers, with all necessary protection,
payment, training, supervision and other needs required to function as
frontline workers, during the COVID pandemic and in the post pandemic recovery
stage.
● Ensure
routine immunisation and other essential
child health services are not disrupted.
●
Urgently restart monitoring of growth and tracking
of malnourished and SAM (Severe
Acute Malnutrition) children, provide additional nutrition and energy DENSE
food for severely malnourished children, supplementary nutrition/mid-day meals
for children, pregnant and lactating mothers and adolescent girls.
● Re-start
MDMS to provide one hot cooked
meal or dry rations to every child, including children who have migrated,
during school closure on account of COVID pandemic, to ensure children receive at least one full meal daily.
● The State Department of Education, State Food
Commission, SMCs and village vigilance committees should proactively monitor
the delivery of services on the ground.
● Create a cadre of para mental health workers at
district level, trained in giving emotional first aid, and identify severity,
which could be reported to specialists. Make mental health services available
and accessible to all children.[9]
● Ensure
health and nutrition requirements of adolescent girls through regular supply of iron supplements, RCH services,
menstrual hygiene products, and supplementary nutrition through ICDS
● No child victim of sexual offences should be denied
free first aid or medical treatment, including medical termination of pregnancy
(MTP) in accordance with the MTP Act, 1971. No legal or magisterial requisition
or other documentation should be demanded for rendering emergency medical care
in cases under POCSO Act, 2012.[10]
If the pregnancy exceeds 20 weeks, legal aid should be provided to the child to
petition the High Court for termination.
● Ensure the
right to food and adequate nutrition,
health, care and protection of children
without parental care, living in child care institutions, young persons living
in aftercare homes or independently and children in street situations by linking them with existing mechanisms or
creation of newer channels.
● Ensure maximum income security through coverage
under MNREGA so that families can ensure nutrition and health of their
children.
● Provide crèche and daycare facilities so that
children are protected and cared for, as poor families rejoin the workforce for
their incomes and sustenance.
2. Ensuring
Children’s Right to Education
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“There
are 24 crore children in the school education system across the country who
have been affected by the closing of schools.” Anita Karwal, Secretary,
Department of School Education and Literacy Sukrita
Baruah, “‘24 crore children in education system affected by school closure;”,
The Indian Express, 6 June 2020,https://indianexpress.com/article/education/24-crore-children-in-education-system-affected-by-school-closure-6444960/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThere%20are%2024%20crore%20children,of%20resources%20for%20psychological%20support |
The Right to Free and
Compulsory Education is an inalienable right and is closely linked with children’s right to health, food and
nutrition, and protection from violence. The likelihood of children,
particularly girls, dropping out from school at all levels, and being pushed
into child labour, forced marriages, or being at risk of trafficking or coming
in conflict with the law, increase manifold when schools are closed for a long
time and there is prolonged economic distress. It will inevitably deny millions
of children opportunities to advance and break the chain of generational
illiteracy and poverty, thus widening the prevailing inequality gaps.
While digital
education was introduced during the lockdown, without access most children find
themselves left out. This includes children with disabilities and children
without smartphones, poor internet connectivity, and electricity.[11]
Children with disabilities are particularly disadvantaged, because apart from
the lack of devices, they require accessible software and hardware and
inclusive education, differentiated teaching and peer support.[12]
● To avoid disruption in education, State Governments
must facilitate the enrolment of
children of migrant families who have returned to their home states in the
local schools, irrespective of the child having official school records.
● Existing data
on out of school children should be revised to factor in the current status
of children who have dropped out of school to join the informal labour force
and children who have returned to their home states and out of school.
● District administration must do a rapid survey of (reverse) migrant
population to assess the numbers of school going children in different age
groups, caste, tribe, religion and gender. This data will help in re-enrollment
of these children into formal schools.
● Schools must track
all enrolled children, especially girls, children with physical and
intellectual disabilities, to ensure that no child drops out and is in
school once they open.
● Educational
materials should be provided along with relief and dry food packages.
● Inclusive
learning solutions are an
imperative for the most vulnerable and marginalized children to bridge the digital divides in our
society.
● Staggered
reopening of schools should be
considered, in view of physical distancing and COVID-19 related protocols.
● The academic
year should be re-organized as a number of States may have staggered
opening of schools. For students up to 9th standard, there need not be an
examination and the student can be assessed according to their academic and
extra curricular performance throughout the year.
● Modifications
should be made to ensure compliance with COVID-19 related protocols before
schools reopen. Schools used for
quarantine should be disinfected properly before they are reopened.
● Education
of children and young persons within the JJ System to education must be continued.
● Vocational
skill and entrepreneurship training programmes should be extended to include
children between 15-18 years and
all available platforms should be used to maximise reach.
3. Protection of Children from Violence, Abuse
and Exploitation
The lockdown has
shown that children are more vulnerable to violence to exploitation.[13]
The opening up adds more complexities which cannot be fully anticipated as yet.
This makes it imperative to rewire the
child protection system to build it bottom-up by strengthening community based child protection mechanisms and community
based services. Recognising that institutionalisation must be the last resort,
families and communities must be strengthened and empowered to look after
the children who need care through sponsorship. Response and rehabilitation services need to be strengthened to
enable them to rise up to ensure children’s rights through the period of
pandemic. Children are increasingly going online to access education and other
information, making them vulnerable to online abuse, requiring strengthened
data protection, and complaints redressal systems.
To ensure the
prevention of violence, abuse and exploitation, robust child-friendly reporting
and response mechanisms, effective access to justice, and rehabilitation of
children, the below- mentioned recommendations need to be considered.
Prevention
● DCPUs, Childline and civil society organisations
should conduct needs assessment of
vulnerable children and their families and connect them to available social
protection schemes.
● Existing
community mechanisms should be
activated and encouraged to focus on protection of children from
violence, abuse and exploitation. Gram Panchayats, village and block level
committees, School Management Committees, para legal volunteers, etc., should
be oriented on child protection risks
due to COVID-19 and tasked with creating
awareness, being vigilant about child labour, child marriage, trafficking, and
violence, and strengthening coordination with the CWC and district level bodies.
● Capacities
of families to be safe and nurturing spaces for children should be built
through discussion forums for parents, grand-parents and children, imparting life skills, physical education for
children, through use of radio, television, and other digital platforms.
● As children will now be compelled to sign up and
access more and more online platforms, the Ministry of Electronics and
Information Technology should create a protocol
in line with global standards for collection and processing of data from
children, while ensuring their rights. The protocol should also provide for
basic minimum cyber security measures for all platforms developed specifically
for children.
● Campaigns for greater awareness of online risks
such as online child sexual abuse material, online sexual abuse, grooming,
unsafe sharing of private information and content, reporting mechanisms and
remedies available should be undertaken.
Reporting and Response Mechanisms
● Core
child protection services, service providers, and authorities i.e., Childine, functioning of JJBs, CWCs, DCPU,
SJPU and police, Child Care Institutions, lawyers including Legal Aid Lawyers,
and mental health service providers, should
be declared essential during any lockdown or declared emergency.[14]
● SOPs
should be issued for the police and SJPU for adhering to legal procedures while ensuring physical
distancing and lockdown restrictions.
● Police
helplines for women and children
and Childline 1098 should be
strengthened and all distress calls
should be responded to promptly and effectively.
● Online
reporting mechanisms for child
abuse should be child friendly and
accessible to persons with disabilities. It should be available via SMS and
in multiple languages.
● Access to
Childline 1098 through a phone
instrument should be available for
children in Child Care Institutions on a 24x7 basis.
● Outreach services should be provided through DCPU
and Childline to ensure rescue and rehabilitation of especially
vulnerable groups of children such as children with disability, ragpickers,
children in a street situation, child labour, transgender children,
commercially sexually exploited children, urban poor children in unorganized
slums.
● Information about the reporting system and recourse available for violence against children
should be publicized on various mediums (radio, Doordarshan, Cable TV,
newspapers, and social media platforms, etc) and on the website of the State
police, nodal department dealing with children, and NCPCR/SCPCR.
● In view of the increased presence of children
online, especially due to online schooling, the cybercrime reporting portal (cybercrime.gov.in) should be re-envisioned
in line with best practices of global online reporting portals and enable
remote reporting.
Children’s Access to Justice
COVID-19 has impeded
children’s right to access effective remedies for violation of their rights,
including their rights under the juvenile justice system. To ensure children’s
continued access to justice during a pandemic, the following need to be
considered:
● The judiciary
should give priority to cases of children in conflict with the law and
crimes against children when it scales down its functioning due to COVID-19.[15]
● SOPs should be issued for JJBs, CWCs, Special Courts
under the POCSO Act, and Children’s Courts for production of children, conduct
of inquiries or trials - as the case may be, while ensuring physical
distancing, and adherence to due process as well as principles of juvenile
justice.
● JJBs, CWCs, and Children’s Courts should apply the
principle of best interest and utilize all available statutory options for
release and alternatives to
detention/institutionalization so as to minimize the risk of harm in Child
Care Institutions.[16]
● While adopting video-conferencing,
courts, JJBs, and CWCs should ensure that children’s rights are protected,
their right to be heard is ensured, and child-friendly
procedures and due process is followed during trials, inquiries, or
preliminary assessments. Where proceedings are being conducted in-person,
travel should be arranged or reimbursed for the child and the accompanying escort,
so to effectively enable the child’s right to be heard.
● Access to
free and high quality legal aid for children deprived of their liberty and
child victims should be
considerably expanded. State/District
Legal Services Authorities should empanel NGOs and Legal firms willing to
provide pro bono legal services.
● When court proceedings as well as records are going
online, privacy and confidentiality of
child parties and victims should be protected, while also ensuring access
to information and court records.
Ensuring Children’s Rights within Child Care Institutions
(CCIs)
●
Data should be
available in the public domain on the numbers of children currently residing in
CCIs, released from CCIs and/or restored to family/guardians, provided
sponsorship, and placed in foster care, adoption, and kinship care.
●
Child Welfare
Committees (CWC) and Juvenile Justice Boards (JJB) should ensure that the Child
Care Institutions they are required to inspect adhere to the directions of the Supreme Court[17]
and COVID-specific guidelines.
● The process
for grant-in-aid transfer should
be simplified to ensure that
CCIs are able to adequately provide for
the needs of children in the context of COVID-19. 50% of the total budget for the year should be released to
ensure that CCIs have the financial liquidity to run for at least three months.
●
An SOP on COVID-19 and functioning of CCIs with
physical distancing norms and
management of cases for prevention and response should be developed.
● Frequency of
health check-ups within CCIs should be increased, arrangements with
facilities for testing of children and staff/caregivers should be made, and
referral to government hospitals ensured on priority basis.
● CCIs should provide education, life skills, restorative processes, recreation, social,
emotional and cognitive stimulation for children in CCIs with the help of
digital interactive resources and with assistance from recognized civil society
organisations.
● Continuous psychosocial care and support should be
provided to children and staff should be trained to provide psychological first
aid. Staff of CCIs need to be affirmed and provided needed psycho-social
services, while also ensuring that they are diligent in the performance of
their duties and additional responsibilities arising out of COVID-19.
● JJBs, CWCs, Children’s Courts and staff of CCIs
must ensure that children have
telephonic contact with their family and allow visits while maintaining
physical distancing in keeping with
government advisories.
● Alternatives
to in-person visiting should be
explored, including the use of
telephones or video to facilitate
interaction between children and
the Support Person assigned under
POCSO Act, lawyer, NGOs authorized
to work in the CCI and other visitors.
Rehabilitation and Social Reintegration of Children
● Model
Sponsorship Guidelines under the
Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 (JJ Act) should be
developed with specific consideration for ensuring financial and other
supplementary support services for children affected by COVID-19, incorporating
the active involvement of local community mechanisms in enabling children’s
access to sponsorship services, and monitoring their well-being in community
based alternative care arrangements.
● The
Central Government should urgently increase its contribution to the Sponsorship Fund and double the financial support per child
in sponsorship/foster-care/kinship care/aftercare. Further, CSR contributions
towards the district sponsorship funds should be expressly encouraged.
● JJBs and
CWCs should take suo moto action to provide sponsorship for children who are found to be in urgent need of
sponsorship, including those from the community and those who released
temporarily from CCIs due to COVID-19, ensure that regular follow-ups are done
and supplementary psycho-social support
services are provided to them.
●
Recognizing
children’s right to their own socio-cultural environment and the principle of
institutionalization as a measure of last resort, kinship care - the most prevalent way of caring for children -should be encouraged and supported through
sponsorship, unless it is not in the best interest of the child.
●
Social Investigation Reports and Individual Care
Plans (ICP) are mandatory to inform the orders of the CWCs, JJBs and Children’s
Courts. DCPUs, CWCs, JJBs and
Children’s Courts, should proactively seek assistance from community based
actors such as school teachers, Anganwadi workers, and recognized NGOs to
provide timely information that could inform their orders.
● CWCs and JJBs must ensure that children who have
attained the age of 18 years, are not released without a suitable pre-release
Individual Care Plan (ICP). Case
management via review of ICP must continue and be reviewed based on the
impact of the pandemic on the child/family.
● State Child Protection Society and DCPUs should prioritize the strengthening of convergence
between all concerned Departments through the District Child Protection
Committees, for effective prevention,
rehabilitation and reintegration of children.
● Proactive steps should be taken to engage ‘Case Workers’ and ‘Social Workers’ as
provided for in Rules 2(1)(iii) and (xviii), JJ Model Rules, 2016 so to
supplement the existing staff of DCPUs and CCIs, in order to ensure
individualized rehabilitation and social reintegration of every child. These
and other enabling provisions of the JJ Act, 2015 and JJ Model Rules, 2016
should be used to promote active involvement of civil society in child
protection.
● Children who have been released from CCIs, or
discharged on attaining the age of 18 years should be encouraged and supported to contact the CCI staff, DCPU or Childline,
should they find the need for assistance during COVID-19.
● COVID-19 has compounded the difficulties faced by Care Leavers[18]
and they urgently need housing, employment, and psychosocial support. CCI
Staff or DCPU should enable their access to PDS, MNREGA, Jan Dhan Yojana, IAY,
PM-JAY and other social protection schemes.
[1] United Nations, “Policy Brief:
The Impact of COVID-19 on children” (15 April 2020), p.2.
[2] Frank Snowden, Epidemics and Society:From Black Death to
the Present, (revised edition 2019).
[3] Sadhka Tiwari, Indiaspend.com,
et.al, “The fallout of India’s lockdown on child malnutrition will be felt long
after the Covid-19 crisis”, Scroll.in, 9
June 2020, https://scroll.in/article/964033/the-fallout-of-indias-lockdown-on-child-malnutrition-will-be-felt-long-after-the-covid-19-crisis
[4] Committee on the Rights of the
Child, “The Committee on the Rights of the Child warns of the grave physical,
emotional and psychological effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on children and
calls on States to protect the rights of children” 8 April 2020, para 1,
available at:
<https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CRC/Shared%20Documents/1_Global/INT_CRC_STA_9095_E.pdf>
[5] Integrated Child
Development Scheme (ICDS), National Health Mission (NHM), Integrated Child
Protection Scheme (ICPS), Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), Pradhan Mantri
Jan Arogya Yojna (PM-JAY) etc., as well as a host of state-specific schemes
[6] “Numbers On the Edge: Assessing India’s Fiscal Response to
COVID-19”; Centre
for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA); http://www.cbgaindia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Numbers-on-the-Edge-Indias-Fiscal-Response-to-COVID-19.pdf
[7] As was done in Adhoc Committee of
the Rajya Sabha to Study the Alarming Issue of Pornography on Social Media and
Society as a Whole.
[8] Local authority as
defined in Section 2(h) RTE Act, 2009 and Disaster Management Act, 2005.
[9] For example, the Delhi Commission
for Protection of Child Rights had put together a panel of counselors from
NGOs who provided phone counselling
through the lockdown in Delhi.
[10] POCSO Rules, Rule 6(3) states “No medical
practitioner, hospital or other medical facility center rendering emergency
medical care to a child shall demand any legal or magisterial requisition or
other documentation as a prerequisite to rendering such care.”
[11] MOSPI, Key
Indicators of Household Social Consumption on Education in India, NSS 75th
Round (July 2017-June 2018), http://mospi.nic.in/sites/default/files/publication_reports/KI_Education_75th_Final.pdf; Abhiroop Mukhopadhyay, “Who goes
online to study in Covid times? 12.5% homes of Indian students have internet
access”, ThePrint, 9 April 2020, https://theprint.in/opinion/who-goes-online-to-study-in-covid-times-12-5-homes-of-indian-students-have-internet-access/398636/
[12]Press statement by National Platform for Rights of the
Disabled, 7 June 2020.
[13] Lalita Panicker, “Protect
children from fallout of COVID-19 Opinion”, The
Hindustan Times, 16 May 2020 https://www.hindustantimes.com/columns/protect-children-from-the-fallout-of-covid-19/story-YrGNR47HeKYwth5XkId22H.html
[14] Committee on the Rights of the Child, “The
Committee on the Rights of the Child warns of the grave physical, emotional and
psychological effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on children and calls on States
to protect the rights of children” 8 April 2020, para 1, available at: <https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CRC/Shared%20Documents/1_Global/INT_CRC_STA_9095_E.pdf>
[15] UNODC & UNDP, Ensuring Access to Justice in the context of COVID-19: A joint Guidance
Note by UNODC and UNDP, p.14,
available at : <https://www.unodc.org/documents/Advocacy-Section/Ensuring_Access_to_Justice_in_the_Context_of_COVID-191.pdf>
[16] OHCHR, COVID-19
Guidance, available at: < https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/COVID19Guidance.aspx> ; In
re: Contagion of COVID-19 Virus in Children Protection Homes, Suo Motu Writ
Petition (Civil) No.4 of 2020, order passed by the Supreme Court on 03.04.20.
[17] In re: Contagion of COVID-19 Virus in Children Protection Homes, Suo
Motu Writ Petition (Civil) No.4 of 2020.
[18] Children in institutional care
are required by law to exit the institution and live independently in society
upon attainment of majority (18 years of age). Young people exiting formal
supervised care in CCIs are referred to as ‘care leavers’.
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