The Department of Social Justice, with the support of city police and Childline India Foundation, will launch a comprehensive field study here on Sunday to verify the identity of children who at present roam around the city with persons claimed to be their parents or local guardians.
The initiative comes under the department’s ‘Valsalyam’ project to ensure the safety and security of these children from physical and mental exploitation. The drive, conducted with the support of the city police, will also help the Social Justice Department to prepare a reliable record on wandering children in the city and upload the collected details, with photographs, to a web-based National Tracking System.
On completion of the uploading process, the data will be available for all government departments concerned to crosscheck whether these children are linked to any of the previously reported missing cases in the country.
“In the first phase, we will conduct searches in some of the public places in the city where these children are regularly appearing for odd street vending jobs. Though they are found doing it many a time in presence of their ‘parents,’ we need to verify that these persons are actually their parents or not,” said district child protection officer Sheeba Mumthaz.
The verification process would be conducted by a special team in such a manner to cover all the targeted ones and without leaving any loophole for evasion, she said.
Officials attached to the Social Justice Department also made it clear that a similar verification process would be conducted in all places where children from other States were admitted. “The circumstances those led these children to orphanages or other such institutions will be checked in detail. Along with this, their identity too will be verified,” they said.
Rehabilitation is also included in the scheme as children who are in need of such a support will be directly presented before the Child Welfare Committee for clearing further formalities. “We have ensured the cooperation of all departments concerned to make it a success. The public can also inform the department using the Childline’s toll free number-1098,” officials said.
