The basic rights of children were brought to the limelight at a meeting organised on Sunday to mark International Child Rights Day.
Forum for Child Rights, a consortium of allied government departments and like-minded voluntary organisations involved in the work of protecting the rights of children, organised the event as part of a fortnight-long ‘Childline Se Dosti' campaign.
“Children have the right to special protection because of their defencelessness against mistreatment. The first United Nations statement devoted exclusively to the rights of children was the Declaration on the Rights of the Child, adopted in 1959. This was a moral rather than a legally binding document. In 1989, the legally binding Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted by the UN,” said K. Ajay Kumar, Income Tax Commissioner, Vijayawada.
Main issues
Of the nearly 40 issues identified as ‘child rights', the four main ones were a child's right to survival, right to participation, right to development and right to protection, he maintained.
Mr. Ajay Kumar said the local voluntary organisations were doing a commendable job of strengthening the hands of the district administration in the anti-child abuse drive. T. Venkateswara Rao, former Mayor and founder president of the Forum for Child Rights, Krishna district, said the organisation was constituted on August 14 of 1997.
Over the years, it had grown from strength to strength, bringing recognition to Vijayawada city for its outstanding work in the field of child welfare activities, he said.
He said although there was a lot more to be done to end the menace of street children, forces involved in the drive deserved praise for their endeavour.
Additional Municipal Commissioner P. Venakata Ramana, National Child Labour Programme Project Director K. Siva Shankar Rao, treasurer of Forum for Child Rights B. S. Koteswara Rao, Women and Child Welfare Department Project Director G. Visalakshi, and former MLA K. Subbaraju were among those present.
