Meet on human rights of child

VADODARA, July 16: The Department of Human Development and Family Studies (HDFS) and the UGC/DSA programme, Faculty of Home Science, M S ...

VADODARA, July 16: The Department of Human Development and Family Studies (HDFS) and the UGC/DSA programme, Faculty of Home Science, M S University, in conjunction with UNICEF, Gandhinagar, will organise a national seminar in the city on `Towards Ensuring Human Rights of the Child’ on July 18 and 19.

Announcing this in a press conference on Wednesday, Reader of the HDFS department and seminar director Indira Mallya said that the seminar aimed to critically examine the United Nations Convention on Rights of the Child (CRC) from the perspective of survival, protection, development and participation rights of children.

“Though the Government of India had ratified the CRC document in 1992 to serve the country’s children as the `first call’ of the nation, evaluations by various agencies like the UNICEF, Amnesty International, International Commission on Human Rights among others, show that violations of human rights of children are on the rise. Therefore, we have decided to detect the lacunae by tearing apart the document and analysing it using a three-pronged approach,” Mallya said.

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The seminar will bring together policy-makers, legal practitioners, academics, social activists and experts from various fields to examine and document the often violated rights, examine safeguards provided by the said documents and suggest a line of action to plug the loopholes in order to speed up the process of delivering justice to the children.

“We wish to sensitize the participants to the significance of the CRC and its relevance to the lives of children,” said Mallya.

The seminar will identify grossly abused groups of children such as child labourers and prostitutes, street children and those disabled, and scrutinize the legal aspects of the violations. It will also list out agencies which can help protect the children and identify the role of the State government in protection of their rights.

“Having analysed the existing plan of action drawn by the government, four simulataneous groups will draw a revised plan of action within their specific group of rights and this will be submitted in a memorandum to the Chief Minister,” said Mallya.

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Key persons from the State Department of Women and Child Development, NIPCCD, National Commission for Women, along with leading MPs and MLAs, government officials, Non Governmental Organisations, administrators from UNICEF and World Health Organisation (WHO), among others will participate in the seminar. Social activist from Maharshtra Shiela Barse will kick off the discussion on the CRC, while Co-ordinator of the Women Studies and Research Centre (WSRC) Amita Verma will be the consultant for the seminar.