Committees functioning at the local-body level for protection of children’s rights should intensify their functioning, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has said.
He was speaking after the State-level inauguration of a series of 40 workshops being organised by the Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child Rights for members of child protection committees at the district- and block-levels here on Saturday.
Mr. Vijayan said children faced a number of problems on an everyday basis. Besides physical and mental harassment, many of them faced sexual harassment too. Even public places were becoming unsafe for them. Homes should be their sanctuary, but here too children had many unsavoury experiences. There was no dearth of people ready to exploit children’s innocence. Often, children were not able to recognise them. Hence, it was adults who needed to be alert to such people.
Teachers and parents should be able to perceive if a child was upset and look into its causes. Parents should try to spend maximum quality time with their children. If they failed to do that, children could be led astray.
Child labour, though not a huge problem for the State, should be seen with due seriousness. Children from other States were brought here for labour, and had to face many difficulties. Child labour did not behove civilised societies, the Chief Minister said.
Local self-government institutions had a huge role to play in protection of child rights. However, it needed to be examined if these were able to discharge this responsibility. The effectiveness of mechanisms such as Balasabhas and ‘jagratha samithis’ should be looked into.
Mr. Vijayan said child rights protection mechanisms had limitations when it came to interventions in solving children’s problems that were region-specific.
They also had a huge role to play in taking government projects for child rights protection to the children.
The 40 workshops would help strengthen child protection committees at the local self-government-level. This would help finding solutions at the local level, he said.