Protection is the right of every child. It
is the collective responsibility of the family, the community and the State to
create an environment that is protective towards children and is sensitive to
their physical, mental and emotional needs. It is unfortunate, thus, that in
the year 2012, the total number of missing children in Delhi was around 4086.
The number of cases involving child abuse and kidnapping too are high and have
registered an increase over the past year.
Recognizing this, AFD-Pratidhi empowered a
group of adolescent girls in the Trilokpuri community of East Delhi who have
been acting as agents of change and have been involved in campaigning for the
rights of children and specifically raising awareness on child protection
issues such as banning the PV test, kidnapping, child labor, trafficking,
misbehavior by officials with the victims of sexual assault and changing the
perception of the community towards the victims. As a result of their tireless
campaigning, other members of the community including women, parents and
youngsters have also begun lending active support to child protection issues.
AFD-Pratidhi helps them gain a clearer understanding of child protection issues
and provides strategic support to this group in order to increase their
participation in local governance.
In the run up to the assembly elections in
Delhi, a coordinated signature campaign was organized by The Delhi Child Rights
Group across the city and approximately 40000 signatures were collected in an
attempt to bring child protection issues in the manifestoes of political
parties. As a member of this group, AFD-Pratidhi was responsible for the
campaign in East Delhi. The Trilokpuri community contributed approximately 1000
signatures to this campaign. Following up on this, another campaign, Kahi Hum Bhul Na Jaye! was organized in
order to discuss issues related to child protection and to mobilize the
community to seek their local legislative candidates’ support for a Children’s
Manifesto.
The campaign started in the first week of
November, 2013 and continued till 2nd December 2013. Street plays
were organized, meetings were conducted in various blocks of the community,
door-to-door visits were made to create awareness and members of the community
were asked to take a commitment from their candidates to actively address child
protection issues. The campaign lasted around 25 days and volunteers interacted
directly and indirectly with hundreds of members of the community.
While community members were sensitive to
the issues related to child protection, the impending elections brought several
other issues of the community into focus. Child protection, thus, featured low
in the priority of community members as far as expectations from their
electoral candidates went. It was noticed, however, that several members of the
community actively distributed copies of children’s manifestos to their neighbors
and candidates of their own accord. Activities such as these reinforce our
belief that rather than act as a representative of the community, we are at our
most helpful when we sensitize the community and empower them to take
responsibility in solving their own problems. It was this belief that led us to
encourage the community itself to petition their candidates rather than merely
speak to the candidates on their behalf and we hope this belief will be
vindicated in time when the community will no longer need assistance from us to
deal with child protection issues.
Links:
- http://epaper.jagran.com/epaperimages/24112013/delhi/23del-pg5-0.pdf
- http://epaper.navbharattimes.com/paper/4-13@13-23@11@2013-1001.html
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