Monday 28 October 2013

Demand to include Child Protection issues in political parties manifesto


Govt. does not give any priority to implementation of ICPS, JJ Act or The POCSO Act. The lethargy and inaction of the Govt. machinery is a major hindrance in effective implementation of above laws and schemes meant for children. 
In order to deal with this state of affairs more than 60 Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and activists have come together as Delhi Child Rights Group (DCRG) to run community based campaign all over Delhi. 
As a first step a press conference cum public meeting was organized on 27th April,2013 to highlight all aspects of systematic failures experienced by child rights  organizations while dealing with cases of sexual violence against children. After that a memorandum of demand was prepared which highlighted all gaps in the system and list of demands of corrective measures( memorandum attached). It was decided to go to people in different settlements and colonies of Delhi, raise awareness on the issue and seek support of people for the memorandum.  

This is election time in many States including Delhi. Therefore, it was decided by the group that we will have a meeting with all the major political parties in Delhi and submit the memorandum of demand (https://app.box.com/s/flxz95mj31fq6kp1r3q0)along with 40000 signatures.

In this regard the core group members first met Arvind Kejariwal the convener of AAP on 14.10.2013. He promised to work with DCRG if elected to power and has assured to give importance to Child Protection issues in his party’s manifesto. Yogendra Yadav who is working on the Party’s manifesto has been given our memorandum along with signatures and factsheet.
Further we met Mr. Vijay Sharma, Organizing General Secretary, BJP Delhi on 15.10.2013 and shared our concern on Child Protection issues and submitted the memorandum along with signatures and factsheet.  He assured us that his party will work on this issue. We have also sent the copy of memorandum to Mr. Harsh Vardhan, who is preparing the party’s manifesto and he is the Delhi Chief Ministerial candidate of BJP.

Lastly the core group went to meet Smt. Shiela Dikshit, CM, Delhi on 22.10.2013 at 9.00 a.m., as per the scheduled date and time given by the CM office. While she was going inside her office she asked the core group to hand over the copy of their demands, but she did not give any assurance whether her party will include the demands in the party’s manifesto.  

Now Delhi Child Right Group is going submit memorandum of demand along with 40000 signatures to followings:
State level.
·        Lieutenant Governor
·        Minister WCD
·        Police commissioner
·        DCPCR

National Level.
·         Prime Minister
·         Home minister
·         Minister WCD
·         NCPCR

Delhi Child Right Group also planning to organize Round table meeting/ Dialogue with leaders of Political Parties in third week of November 2013.


Please see the media stories on the campaign. If any of you interested, we can send you the memorandum, and other documents.