TN stakeholders welcome SC’s handbook on children’s legal rights
Interestingly, the timing could not have been right as the TN State Policy for Children had expired last year, urging the government to revisit the policy and inculcate child legal rights for the state.
Supreme Court (Photo: PTI)
CHENNAI: With a crucial need to educate and elaborate on the various nuances in cases related to children, the Supreme Court of India together with the Juvenile Justice Committee had recently released a handbook on ‘Child Rights and the Law’. Stakeholders across the State have welcomed the handbook and called it a need of the hour.
Interestingly, the timing could not have been right as the TN State Policy for Children had expired last year, urging the government to revisit the policy and inculcate child legal rights for the state.
With the mounting cases and each case bringing different challenges to the fore, the SC released the handbook with JJC under the Centre for Research & Planning (CRP), a policy centre of the SC. The handbook highlights that the legal framework governing child rights in India is extensive yet fragmented.
Hence, the document will provide insights to legal practitioners, child rights activists among others to understand child rights and law better. The handbook, besides highlighting vital cases that brought-in the need for such a document, had also detailed the responsibilities to be taken by each State.
As per the document, the responsibilities of the State include protecting children from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury, abuse, and neglect, including sexual exploitation (Article 19), providing parentless children with suitable alternative care (Article 20), disabled children having the right to special treatment, education, and care (Article 23), ensuring the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health (Article 24) and protecting children from economic exploitation among others.
A Devanayan, a child rights activist said, “It is highly appreciated that the SC realised the need for this particular kind of handbook, which will aid everyone working for child rights.”
However, as the particular document is in text nature, Devanayan, the founder and director of Thozhamai, a civil society organisation calls to simplify the concepts for everyone. “As the document is in English and in text form, it will be more effective if the concepts are detailed in the form of graphics/flowchart. This can be done by CRP or by respective states in their native languages,” he explained.
However, in the case of TN, the State Policy for Child Rights released in 2021, which expired in 2024 calls for review. “As the policy was active only till 2024, a review meeting only under the Chief Secretary must be called upon with different nodal departments from education, health, police, and social welfare among others to make necessary additions and corrections in the policy and budget allocation for children,” opined Devanayan.
Though the TN policy speaks enough on legal rights of children, more needs to be looked at with the handbook released by the SC, claim TN stakeholders.
