: The Child Protection Unit will soon take up a vulnerability mapping of children living in high-risk families within the limits of Kottakkal municipality and Edarikode panchayat. A meeting of people’s representatives and officials of various units under the Social Justice Department held at Kottakkal on Tuesday decided to conduct the mapping in the wake of increasing reports of child abuse from the region.
Children of single-parent families, children of parents with drug or alcohol addiction and street children will come under the radar. Special focus will be given to children of families living in quarters. The mapping will be done with the help of Anganwadi workers.
Kottakkal municipality has offered the land required to construct a home for girls. It will be the first of its kind in the district. “We have been facing a lot of difficulties because of the unavailability of a children’s home for girls,” said A.K. Salih, Protection Officer.
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The Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) has kept aside Rs. 1.29 crore for the project. District Child Protection Officer Sameer Machingal said that it would be a great boon for the district. The municipality has agreed to upgrade two of its feeding centres to drop-in centres for foundlings. The district currently has no recognised Ammathottil or foundling centre.
The municipality will also conduct awareness programmes for vulnerable children and families in association with the District Child Protection unit. Special emphasis will be given against child marriages, said Municipal Chairperson T.V. Sulekha Beevi. The recent unearthing of a sex racket involving a 13-year-old child and her mother from a quarters at Kottakkal had shocked the neighbourhood.
The mapping will be done with the help of Anganwadi workers.