Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai   

Restoring children to their real home

By Ramya Kannan

Chennai Nov. 16 . Walking in step with the global principle of `de-institutionalisation', the Directorate of Social Defence has added fresh impetus to its project of restoring children under its care to their parents. So far, over 100 children have been restored to their families, most of them, in and around Chennai.

Neo-converts to this principle, founded on the assumption that the child can be best reared in family environs, officials at the Directorate have indigenised the concept, fashioning methods more acceptable to the local public they have to deal with.

"Most of the children in our homes, who are not juvenile delinquents, are not strictly `orphans' in the true sense of the term. They have at least one surviving parent or close family they can go back to," says the Director of Social Defence, Mohammed Nasimuddin. Over the years, it has become apparent that most children belong to broken families, where either of the parents has deserted the family or the father is an abusive alcoholic. The rest of the family believes that if the children are in the care of the Government, they can continue education uninterrupted. They can return to their families during vacation.

The others inmates are children who run away from their families and found loitering on the streets by police personnel who produce them before the Juvenile Justice Board. Very few children are truly `destitute' or abandoned.

"When parents produce their children before the board, we persuade him/her to take them back, pointing out that the family provides the appropriate environment for the children to grow up," says Vidya Shankar, chairperson, Juvenile Welfare Board. "We often have a tough time convincing parents that it is the best thing for their children," she adds. However, parents even prefer to `dump' the children at the board's home. Only in those conditions where the family is reported to be `unfit' for the growth and development of the child, the board agrees to admit the child into its home.

Before a child is restored to the family, a detailed analysis of the family position and situation is made by probation officers (PO). It is only when the PO certifies that the family atmosphere will be conducive for the child's growth, does further action begin. The parents are called and counselled to take back their children.

Once the children go back home, probation officers make periodic visits to their houses to ensure that they are doing well. If the PO feels at any point that the children are being ill-treated, the officer can entrust them back to the care of the government home.

"Our main goal is to ensure that the child gets the best," says Krishnan Pillai, a PO. He is on his regular visit to the residence of Anbarasu and Maniarasu, two children whose father entrusted them to the government home at Kellys after their mother deserted the family. However, when the father remarried, his second wife was willing to take care of the children and they were restored to their family. Now, they are now doing well and they do not even remember their life at Kellys. "It is in very rare instances that the children are ill-treated by their families. Under such circumstances, we have pulled them out," Mr. Pillai says.

However, it is with great scepticism that the community looks at this move. Some of them seem to feel that the Government is ``shirking its responsibility''. It suits some to have their children only during holidays and not be forced to take care of them throughout. The Government, on the other hand, despite strong resistance from the community, has doggedly been pursuing the cases, trying to bring parents round to its point of view.

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