CHENNAI: The Social Welfare and Women Empowerment department has ordered a ward-level child protection committee and has defined the functions and goals for the same.

The functions and objectives for operating the child protection committee are; a mandatory meeting to be held every once in three months, where the meetings have to be scheduled once during January to March, April to June, July to September and October to December.

Importantly, the meetings must discuss issues surrounding child marriage, child labour, child trafficking, migration for employing children in jobs, exploitation, prevention of illegal adoption of children and child protection and creating awareness in urban areas.

Besides this, the respective protection committee should provide necessary sensitisation to send children to schools regularly.

The committee has also been directed to encourage parents through their children for registering child birth, registering and procuring necessary government documents, enrolling children in schools, mandatory medical check-ups from nearest Primary Health Care (PHC) centres and child vaccination.

To operate the child protection committee, a team of 14 members have been listed by the social welfare department. However, the responsibility for preparing the report and submitting the same rests on the secretary of the committee, stated circular from the department.

Subsequently, after the meeting held every three-months, the report on the discussion must be submitted within the next ten days.

And, in the case of achieving the goals regarding child protection, the department ordered the committee to ensure all children attend school up to class 10, with no cases of child labour in any schools.

Taking measures to prevent teenage pregnancy and abortions, adopt methods to do away with all forms of untouchability, by establishing social cohesion.

Meanwhile, the member secretary of these child protection committees must act as convener and ensure that periodic meetings are conducted.