Teaching child rights to children
RUBY NAKKA
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Instead of observing November 14 as ‘Children’s Day’, it may be called ‘Child Rights Day’
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Six girls of our children’s home came late from school one day and when enquired they reported that the public bus driver didn’t stop the bus at their destination in spite of repeated requests. At their disembarking destination, there’s a large size school and lots of children wait to get into buses and perhaps the bus driver wanted to avoid overcrowding of the bus. Neither the children inside the bus nor those waiting outside deserve this kind of treatme
nt but we know that they occur on a daily basis. This brings up an important question, namely, “why do adults choose to treat children so shabbily”? There are two simple answers to this: the first being that adults may not be even aware that children could have rights; and the second being their perception that they are only kids.
Harmony between two individuals (adults and children here) exists only when there’s an awareness of each other’s rights and children don’t even know that they have rights to recognise when they are violated. For example, in 2007, the Ministry of Women and Child Development had released the findings of the largest empirical study which said that more than 60 per cent of Indian children are subjected to abuse of some kind including sexual abuse. It is important that the society recognises the importance of teaching child rights to our children.
India is a signatory to an international treaty called the “United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC)." This has enabled the Parliament of India to pass an important legislation called the“Juvenile & Justice Act” (JJ Act) and to create a commission called the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR).
Concerted and pragmatic efforts are needed to create widespread empowerment of ordinary citizens (including children themselves) to create awareness about child rights. Instead of observing November 14 as ‘Children’s Day’, it may be called ‘Child Rights Day’. This will create general awareness of child rights and every child related organisation would eventually be educated and empowered to teach about the rights rather than simply to engage children in unrelated activities. With the Right to Education Bill getting Cabinet approval recently, gradually every child will have an opportunity to attend school of some kind in India. Mandating every school to teach about child rights will have farreaching implications to the social fabric of our nation.
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