Child and Law

Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) pronounces that a child should grow up under parent’s custody with his own indigenous cultural background as far as possible. If the parents are incapable of protecting their children then the child can be given in foster care, a system in which a minor has been placed into a state-certified caregiver referred to as a "foster parent"; or give it for adoption where a person can take a child into one’s family through legal means and raise as one’s own child. There are also systems to sustain the child in the family by providing additional support like sponsorship and scholarship. The spirit guiding all the laws for children is such that institutionalization is the last resort for a child. A child in a child care institution can never get the individual care given by a parent to a child.

We have faced issues where institutionalization becomes the first resort. Sometimes separating parents from their children is of utmost importance. Prominent among them are cases of child sexual abuse, children of mentally ill parents and cases of physical abuse and neglect. In such cases immediate intervention and institutionalization becomes a necessity as temporary foster care is almost impossible in Kerala due disinterested parents. The fact remains that there are umpteen number of families looking for adoption and ‘permanent’ foster care.

Last week we got a call to our helpline number 1098 and the informer said that a lady and a girl were begging in the city. Our staff rushed to the spot and found a girl with a mentally ill lady begging in the street. Since she was very violent in nature our staff found it difficult to bring them to CHILDLINE office. We brought them in with the help of police. After enquiry we realised that the child was a boy and being with the mother would indeed make the child also mentally ill gradually. Having networked with different departments and the judicial Magistrate we have admitted the mother to a hospital for treatment and the child has been in some way rescued from its mother!

In every such case then priority should be given to the protection of the child rather than keeping the aesthetics of law. The convention intends a child's protection and when the scenario is dangerous for the child and its sustainable development, suitable interventions are needed.  

Child with Mother

Child after Rescue