What do children’s rights mean to children? Among the cackle of answers, Tejaswi, a student of the Government Higher Primary School, Moolar, demonstrated that it was about the right to demand constitutional benefits. “We have written several times to the gram sabha to ask them to fix the drainages in front of the school as it inundates the area during the rainy season. We have asked them to tackle the dog menace around our school. However, they haven’t taken any action. How do we take action against them?”
It was this sort of ownership of rights that was encouraged during the programme to raise awareness about children’s rights and free and compulsory education, organised by the district administration and the Karnataka State Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (KSCPCR), here on Friday.
H.R. Umesh Aradhya, Chairman, KSCPCR, said with more than 50 crore children in the country, forming 40 per cent of the population and creating awareness among children of their rights was the need of the hour. Children from various government schools across the district participated in a rally to create awareness about the rights accorded to children under the Constitution. Later, at a programme, Asha Nayak, Chairperson, Child Welfare Committee, said the Constitution provided for rights for children that ranged from the right to education, state protection of orphaned children in conflict with the law and destitute children, to laws protecting a girl child, and banning female infanticide.
