Gaon Kalyan Samitis to act as village-level child welfare and protection committees

BHUBANESWAR: In a bid to make the child protection system even more robust at the grassroots, existing Gaon Kalyan Samitis will now also function as village-level child welfare and protection committees. The samitis will work towards prevention, reporting, monitoring, protection and responding to the issues of child rights and protection.

Issuing a directive to reconstitute the samitis to function as village-level child welfare and protection committees recently, the Women and Child Development department said that it will comprise of a woman ward member or a ward member belonging to ST, SC or OBC categories as the president, an anganwadi member as the convenor, ASHA workers, pani panchayat head, SHG members, local youth activists, a school teacher and a representative of district child protection unit (DCPU) as its members, among others. Most importantly, two children in the age group of 12 to 18 will be a part of the committee.

With the State government aiming at ending child marriages by 2030, the committee will not only aid in identifying children in need of social security but also establish a tracking system for the prevention of early marriages, trafficking or any kind of abuse of children.

It will also monitor the well-being of orphaned children in foster care or seasonal hostels and develop a village-level child protection plan to ensure that no child drops out of school. Earlier, child protection committees were limited to block and panchayat levels.