INDIA’S CHILDREN Continue to Challenge our Conscience HAQ: Centre for Child Rights HAQ: Centre for Child Rights 2019 ISBN No.978-93-83807-12-3 Suggested Citation: Ganguly, Enakshi (ed). 2019. India’s Children-Continue to Challenge Our Conscience. HAQ: Centre for Child Rights. New Delhi. India Research: Bharti Ali, Mukund Madhav Published by HAQ: Centre for Child Rights B 1/2, Malviya Nagar, New Delhi +91-11-26677412 +91-11-26674688 (Fax) Website: www.haqcrc.org Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HaqCentreForChildRights/ Twitter: @HAQCRC Linkedin: haq-centre-for-child-rights Part Supported by: Terre des hommes (TDH) (G) India Programme Proof Reading: Vijayalakshmi Balakrishnan, Preeti Singh Cover Image: Anne_Roberts/Flickr Design & Printing: Aspire Design For print copies kindly contact publisher. Report can be downloaded from www.haqcrc.org INDIA’S CHILDREN Continue to Challenge our Conscience Edited by Enakshi Ganguly “The greatest lessons in life, if we would but stoop and humble ourselves, we would learn not from the grown-up learned men, but from the so-called ignorant children.” Mahatma Gandhi Acknowledgement In 2002, HAQ: Centre for Child Rights published its first Status Report on India’s Children titled “Children in Globalising India: Challenging Our Conscience”. This report, which is also the fifth in the series, reflects on how children and the realisation of their rights continue to challenge our conscience even today. The first status report was an edited volume and so is this one. It comes after a gap of about eight years as updated information and data on child rights indicators is one of those challenges that digital India needs to overcome at the same pace as launching of remote sensing satellites. Sadly, the last household survey data available at scale is Census 2011. NFHS-4 was published in 2015-16 and the last set of crime statistics available is also dated 2017. Although the data challenge remains, an effort has been made by the authors as well as HAQ to scan through a range of different sources of information. The other challenge that this report highlights is with respect to a plethora of laws and policies that get framed and reframed in the name of promoting, protecting and realising children’s rights, while ignoring even the little evidence that is available, particularly on the implementation gaps. The third most critical challenge in a country where children constitute 37 per cent of the population is the absence of engagement with children who are directly and indirectly affected by the policy changes, and more so when plans and strategies change too frequently, the education sector being a stark example of this. With support from Terre des Hommes (Germany), the publication has been simplified by Ms. Mini Shrinivasan for children’s understanding and use. We sincerely appreciate Mini for agreeing to do this at a very short notice and with limited time in hand. Around 60 children from across the country will be discussing the child-friendly version at a children’s convention and will share their experiences, thoughts and voices at a public hearing on 20th of November 2019 that marks the 30 Years of UN CRC. We approached a number of agencies, seeking support for this report. Terre des Hommes (Germany) is the only agency that agreed to part support the publication and release. We thank them for vesting their trust in us. We thank all the authors who contributed to this report. They have at different points been requested, cajoled and even pushed. We recognise that each one of them is super busy, but they agreed to be part of this mammoth project pro bono. For that we are deeply grateful. We need to especially acknowledge Meenakshi Ganguly who as always gets pulled in for her inputs and support. We also thank Aspire Design, our most trusted design and printing partners to have given the publication its present shape. We thank the children who inspire us to keep pushing for change in a world that often seems so unchanging…because change is so slow to come by. For the last 20 years children have reminded us never to give up, because they do not. Enakshi Ganguly Bharti Ali Contents About the Authors Abbreviations 1. India’s Children: Continue to Challenge Our Conscience 10 Enakshi Ganguly PART 1 2. Role of the State in Advancing Child Rights – Overcoming Ambivalence 38 Karuna Bishnoi 3. Child Health 58 Abhijit Das 4. Child Protection in India 80 Nicole Rangel Menezes 5. Education as A Right 102 Subir Shukla 6. Children’s Participation – A Practitioner’s Perspective 120 Rita Panicker 7. Ecological Rights of Children 134 George Chira 8. Public Financing and Child Rights 146 Biswajit Dhar PART 2 9. Visibilising The Young Child in India as A Rights’ Holder 160 Samreen Mushtaq, Amrita Jain and Sumitra Mishra 10. Children with Disabilities – An Excluded Agenda 170 Anita Ghai 11. Sexual Abuse of Children and the Child Protection Challenge 186 Bharti Ali 12. Children in Conflict with the Law 210 Shruthi Ramakrishnan and Swagata Raha 13. Child Marriage – Ongoing yet Changing 224 Enakshi Ganguly and Indira Pancholi 14. Children Growing up in the Shadow of Conflict 238 15. Rethinking Child Labour 248 Prabir Basu 16. Do Children’s Issues Make News? 268 Biraj Swain 2 About The Authors ABHIJIT DAS is a doctor with training in obstetrics, paediatrics and public health. He is currently Managing Trustee, Centre for Health and Social Justice, in New Delhi and Clinical Associate Director, University of Washington, Seattle, USA. He has over thirty years’ experience in working directly with communities as well as improving systems through training, research and policy advocacy at the national and global level. Abhijit is a pioneer on involving men for gender equality programming. He has authored many papers and articles in academic and popular publications and has been an invited speaker on many national and international platforms. AMRITA JAIN is Chairperson, Mobile Creches, while being a member on the Governing Board, she has worked closely with Mobile Creches programme since 1991. She has developed training modules, curriculum and has been actively involved with advocacy from grass roots to policy for the young child. ANITA GHAI is an academic and an activist working in areas of disability sexuality, psychology, gender, education and health rights. She is professor in School of Human Studies, Ambedkar University Delhi since 2015. Before this, she was an Associate Professor in Department of Psychology in Jesus and Mary College, University of Delhi. As a former fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum Library, Teen Murti Bhavan, she has researched on issues of care of disabled women. She has been President of the Indian Association for Women’s Studies. Her contribution to the field of disability studies is considered seminal. She has published extensively on feminism and disability rights. BHARTI ALI is a development professional and a social activist working on issues concerning the rights of women and children for over 28 years. She is one of the Co-founders and currently the Executive Director of HAQ: Centre for Child Rights. She has conducted and led several researches, training and capacity building programmes for different stakeholders, public advocacy and campaigns on child rights and child protection concerns in particular. Some of her research is published in the form of books, articles and reports. 3 BIRAJ SWAIN works on the intersection of poverty, public policy and citizen-state engagement in South Asia, HECA (Horn East and Central Africa) and globally. She is a Senior International Development Expert, an educator, writer, media- watcher and podcaster. She has also been an ICFJ Washington DC fellow on Early Child Development. She is creator and curator of several journals and programmes such as a multi-media #ChildhoodMatters and Global Summits: Where are we going? for NewsLaundry; IDS journal- Standing on the threshold: Food Justice in India; Of Nourishing India’s Tribal Children. She is a regular media critic and commentator. BISWAJIT DHAR is Professor, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning in the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Prior to joining the University, Dr Dhar was the Director General of Research and Information System for Developing Countries, a think-tank under the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, which specialises on international economic issues. ENAKSHI GANGULY is the Co-founder of HAQ: Centre for Child Rights and was its Co-Director till August 2018. She has been engaged in research, advocacy and training on wide-ranging socio-legal issues and human rights particularly of children, women and other marginalised groups for three and a half decades. She is currently Advisor to HAQ. INDIRA PANCHOLI has been involved in a range of women’s rights issues through her work with Information Development and Resource Agency (IDARA), Mahila Samuh, Ajmer, Agaz Foundation and Azad Foundation. She is also well known for her work on the rights of displaced persons and was, with her partner, Ravi Hemadri, instrumental in the formation of Bisalpur Samanvay Samiti – an organisation of the people displaced from Bisalpur dam in central Rajasthan. Her work among women of this region led to the formation of Mahila Jan Adhikar Samiti (MJAS) in 1995. Although it began by combating violence against women and women’s empowerment through leadership development as central issues, today it also works with children and adolescents. She is currently heading the child marriage prevention project of HAQ: Centre for Child Rights. She continues her association with MJAS and Bisalpur Samanvay Samiti and is an active member of autonomous women’s movement in the country. She has undertaken a number of research studies and published in English and Hindi. 4 KARUNA BISHNOI is a child rights advocate and independent consultant with over four decades of work experience in social development with a specific focus on child rights since 2000.