Karnataka - Bangalore   

Separate ministry for children mooted

— Photo: K. Gopinathan

Miles to go: Nina Nayak, Chairperson, Karnataka State for Protection of Child Rights (left), with children at a function to mark the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Bangalore on Friday.

Bangalore: India has come up with a plethora of legislations and schemes in alignment with the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), adopted by the United Nations 20 years ago. But the evidence on ground suggests that many good intentions have remained mostly slogans.

Consider some statistics: 170 million children in India (about 40 per cent of all children) remain “vulnerable”, with minimal access to fundamental rights such as education and health. In Karnataka, about 8 lakh children are categorised as vulnerable.

And yet, the Indian budgetary allocation to child welfare is only 4.9 per cent of the total spending. Of this, 3.4 per cent goes to education and health, leaving little funds for other issues of protection and care.

Nina P. Nayak, Chairperson of the Karnataka State for Protection of Child Rights, presented these statistics at the seminar organised by the Karnataka Child Rights Observatory (KCRO) on the 20th anniversary of CRC here on Friday.

Ms. Nayak said that an approach to child rights which is more focused on community participation and setting up of a separate ministry exclusive to deal with children, separating it from the Ministry of Women and Child Development, could help realise the goals envisaged in the CRC.

The programme had children such as Dhanalakshmi, a Class 7 student who earlier worked as a rag-picker, demanding that education and other benefits be made accessible to all children.

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