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On Thursday, the SC said that the existing mechanism was not adequate enough to curb incidents of sexual abuse of children and girls at shelter homes and asked the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) to enlighten it on the formulation of a child protection policy.
A bench headed by Justice Madan B Lokur and comprising of Justices S Abdul Nazeer and Deepak Guptademanded the joint secretary of MWCD to appear before it on October 8 and assist the court in understanding what exactly was proposed to deal with issues like rehabilitation and counselling of such victims, conditions prevailing at child care institutions and formulation of child protection policy.The bench observed that existing mechanism is not adequate, had it been so then what had happened in Muzaffarpur would not have happened.
The bench was dealing with the matter wherein 34 girls were allegedly raped and sexually abused in a shelter home run by an NGO at Muzaffarpur in Bihar. During the hearing, the bench noted that it had earlier asked about the formulation of a child protection policy but no action was taken. The counsel appearing for the MWCD said that as suggested by the apex court, national consultation was taking place with all the states for the formulation of a child protection policy on preventing offences against children. The Centre said that a “series of actions” that should be taken in such cases has been circulated among the states and the ministry would hold a meeting on the issue soon. The counsel told the court that in the last meeting, three states have given information about the action being taken by them in such cases.
The bench asked the MWCD’s counsel to call the joint secretary of the ministry in order to understand the modalities to deal with the issue. Advocate Aparna Bhat, assisting as amicus curiae in the matter, said that a large number of boys and girls have been abused in shelter homes and child care institutions and their rehabilitation is an important issue.
Bhat also said that the data on social audit and research reports on the issue need to be analysed too, when the ministry’s counsel told the court that social audit by NCPCR was already in process. The amicus referred to a similar incident in Andhra Pradesh wherein 26 children living in a shelter home were abused and advised the court to direct the states to file action taken report on incidents of sexual abuse of children in shelter home and child care institutes.
The bench asked the ministry’s counsel to ask the joint secretary to update the status report on incidents of sexual abuse of children as pointed out by the amicus. Earlier, the SC had expressed concerned over sexual and physical abuse of children at shelter homes across India and has asked the Centre to frame a child protection policy for this issue.
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