The State government has constituted a committee to study the condition of the 16 children, who had been separated from their foster caregivers after the Mysuru district police unearthed a major child-trafficking racket.
The committee headed by Deputy Director, Department of Women and Child Development, Mysuru, K. Radha and comprising various child rights experts, besides representatives from the police, will study the condition of the children with the assistance of a child psychiatrist before submitting a report to the government. Child Rights activist Nina P. Nayak, who is also the former chairperson of the Karnataka State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, has also arrived in Mysuru specially for the exercise.
The rescued children are now housed in three different children’s homes in Mysuru and Mandya. Over the last two to three months, a total of 16 children — ranging from a few months old to about five years — had been separated from their foster caregivers, who had illegally purchased the children from racketeers by paying a price ranging from Rs. 1 lakh to Rs. 5 lakh. The racketeers, who targeted unwed mothers wishing to abort their babies, would convince them to deliver and sold the babies to childless couples.
“We will be studying the condition of the separated children with the assistance of experts on Monday and submit a report to the government,” Ms. Radha told The Hindu on Sunday.
Depression
Pointing out that there was concern among various child rights groups that the rescued children, particularly the older ones (who are about four and five years old) had relapsed into depression after their separation from their foster caregivers, she said that the assistance of a child psychiatrist has been sought for the study.
After they were separated from their “illegal” foster caregivers and entrusted to the care of the children’s homes, several children, are believed to have relapsed into depression, putting different law enforcement agencies in a quandary. With the foster caregivers are not allowed to meet the separated children, the children are passing through a difficult phase. “It is a dilemma for the law enforcing agencies,” Ms. Radha said. The children had developed a bond and intimacy with the foster caregivers after staying with them. The foster caregivers, who have also been found to be on the wrong side of law, had tried to prove their bond with the children by producing before the authorities photographs of various occasions of the children like their birthdays, and naming ceremonies, Ms. Radha said.
