Karnataka - Bangalore   

Funds sought for child protection scheme

Bangalore: Karnataka has taken its first tentative step towards implementing the Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS), sponsored by the Centre, and aimed at providing a safe and secure environment for children, with particular stress on convergence between various departments and stakeholders.

The Department of Women and Child Development has written to the Centre asking for Rs. 23 crore from the Central corpus fund of Rs. 1,800 crore to implement the project in the State. As much as Rs. 5 crore is to come from the State.

This scheme, announced earlier this year, is to be implemented throughout the country over the remaining period of the 11th Plan on a cost-sharing basis between the Centre, States and non-governmental organisations.

The scheme gains importance because within the miniscule funding for children’s welfare, very little is allocated for protection against child abuse.

The objectives of this scheme are to contribute to the improvement in the wellbeing of children in difficult circumstances through strengthening of the juvenile justice system and reducing the vulnerability to situations and actions that lead to abuse, neglect, exploitation, abandonment and separation of children. The fund is to be used to improve access to child protection services, enforce accountability for child protection and establish structures at all Government levels for delivery of statutory and support services to children in difficult circumstances.

Suchitra Rao of UNICEF told The Hindu that one of the focus areas in Karnataka under the scheme would be improving access to childline services at a cost of Rs. 50 lakh.

Child help telephones, which answer distress calls from children, will soon be opened in five districts of Karnataka, and eventually in all districts.

This, she added, was crucial because it was an important route through which children found a voice against abusers.

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