True Equity & Justice Of Society Depends On How Fairly It Treats Its Children: Justice S. Ravindra Bhat

At the outset, Justice Bhat congratulated the High Court of Orissa for organising the consultation program. Further, he appreciated that the program is not only confined to judiciary but also has included scholars and domain experts in the area of juvenile justice as resource persons.

Before delving to the specific concerns regarding the issue, he said that often we fall into the trap of seeing implementation of the Juvenile Justice Act within a silo. But this is far from the truth. Care and protection of children extend beyond the express provisions of the law.

He cited the UNESCO State of the Education Report for India, 2021. He said the Report provides incredible insight as to how we must build frameworks for capacity building of teachers for benefit of children. The Report states that Chhattisgarh, for example, has a total of 56,474 schools of which 76% are rural and 95% of these rural schools rely on a single teacher. Similarly, Bihar with 90% of rural schools has a vacancy of 56% in the posts of teachers. Hence, it requires 2,22,316 teachers to simply meet its vacancy requirements. Again, in 45,908 schools of Jharkhand, over 14% of them rely on a single teacher and there is an overall vacancy of nearly 40%.

He said that though the deliberations in the event may not have a direct impact on the above statistics, yet it is important to acknowledge that education and capacity building of teachers have a massive impact on overall development of children. Hence, he urged that through the deliberations, at least a beginning be made to recognise the need for education of children who are institutionalised or find their way to these institutions.

When it comes to observation homes or especially the class of children who are in conflict with law, the challenge is that they are staying there for a short period of time. He said, the question is what kind of education policies are available for them and what kind of continual monitoring the State is ensuring for these children once they get into some education plans. These are the concerns, he said, that we have to directly engage in and to reach a point where we can come out with a consensus and a plan.

The he highlighted that India ratified the UN Convention on Rights of Children in 1992. The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring the last year as the 'International Year for Elimination of Child Labour'. In this regard, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) called for reports from all the states and Union Territories on action taken against child trafficking. He again pointed out that the concern of child trafficking is not limited to child labour as human trafficking for sex works is alarming in the eastern region of the country, especially in West Bengal, Odisha and Jharkhand.

He said, these are not always due to complete lack of infrastructure or prioritisation. For instance, Odisha has 741 reported victims of human trafficking, which is the second highest in the nation, despite having 25 Integrated Anti-Human Trafficking Units in the State. A large proportion of the above trafficked persons are children. As many as 653 persons were trafficked for forced labour, which accounts for 44.97% of the total victims from this category in India in 2020. The situation reflects deep concern.

Jharkhand had 239 cases in 2019 and 301 in 2020. West Bengal reported 262 cases in 2019 and 71 in 2020. When the matter comes to trafficking of children, he stressed, there is a huge mismatch in data. The Anti-Human Trafficking Units reported only 81 cases of girl trafficking, but the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reflected that over 3259 girls are missing since 2011. In addition to this alarming statistics, in 2020 itself there were cases of 2556 missing girl children in the state.

He said, that though he mentioned a lot of statistics, still the peril is that these statistics are only indicative but numbers in reality are far beyond. This certainly points to the scope for considering a specialised legislation dealing with organised crime such as trafficking in these states. However, in the meanwhile a lot can be done in the existing framework. Regardless of works done by NGOs and civil society organisations which have worked and will continue to work towards curbing this menace, our institutional framework must make it a priority and through collaboration with such actors, carry out anti-trafficking efforts including awareness-drives, fostering local community safety groups, stringent verification and vetting among other strategies.

Again, he highlighted that the NHRC's Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for combating trafficking in India is an extremely comprehensive step-wise guide that should be implemented through robust institutions with child-centric approach as contemplated by the Juvenile Justice Act itself. In addition to the provisions under the Indian Penal Code, the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 2016, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 and the Sections 74 to 85 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act, 2015 criminalise specific conduct and acts in this regard. He urged that those must be implemented stringently.

Next, he asked, is there a follow-up after repatriation both with the child and guardian? Can that be used to assess the practical difficulties that authorities are facing while convicting the accused? He said, it cannot be forgotten that these challenges in anti-trafficking efforts much like all the other concerns highlighted in the event.

In terms of the POCSO adjudication, he cited, the State of West Bengal 19,649 pending cases, Bihar has 14,089 and Odisha has about 12,332. Also, statistics reflects that there has been a rapid increase in these offences in the last decade. In 2009, 87 cases were there, whereas it stands at 1648 in 2019. Cases of child sexual abuse in Odisha has seen a 1794% increase in the last 10 years as per the latest national data.

He agreed with Chief Justice Muralidhar's suggestion that there is a need to engage with the law-makers to bring out a reform in the 'homogenised' way of looking at children. He, therefore, urged High Courts and State Governments to consider strategies to mitigate pendencies, without harming the rights of accused and ensuring fair trial. Setting-up more POCSO Courts, institutionalising the use of more support-persons, to bridge the gap between victims and the state machinery which in turn helps in collection of evidence are among other strategies which he highlighted.

Justice Bhat said, sexually abused children suffer from various psychological effects that manifest physically, mentally and emotionally. These reactions or manifestations are further affected by various factors like age, support of family, relationship with the accused, societal stigma among other. They sometimes suffer a loss of self-worth because they hold themselves responsible for the incident or they may hold the adults in their lives responsible which in turn result in they becoming 'withdrawn'. Studies have shown that the development of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, suicidal tendencies and subsequently, substantive abuse are frequently seen among child victims of sexual assault.

He stressed that mental health interventions which encourage the survivors to move beyond the trauma of 'victimhood' are the need of the hour. Its corresponding training and capacity building requires urgent consideration.

While talking about the issues of institutional homes and perils of non-institutional care, he said that the juveniles who are living in correctional homes or observation homes or juvenile centres are at a risk of developmental delay. Studies suggest that caregiver's training positively change the quantity of time the juveniles spend with the caregivers, which is the temporal context and quality of time that the juveniles spend with their caregivers which is the social context. Thus, he categorically stated, caregiver's training has the potential to improve the environment in the residential care facilities and can be used an as interventionalist strategy by occupational therapists.

In these circumstances, a standardized curriculum for persons dealing with children and encountering juvenile justice system which should include educating about child psychology, different psychological and biological needs of children in need of care and protection and children in conflict with law will go a long way, he added.

Another important topic of discussion was implementation of the non-institutional care. He pointed out that it is markedly different from the goal of de-institutionalization. Non-institutional care can be characterized as the beginning from the get go as non-institutional options, while de-institutionalization is to remove someone who is already in institutional care and then place them in non-institutional care. De-institutionalization requires balancing of many concerns and it is a final solution. Since a child is placed in an institutional care as a step of last resort, the act of de-institutionalization must be done as a result of immense scrutiny and qualitative evaluation, which will create numerous concerns that require serious consideration.

Another aspect, he raised, as to how we are supporting children who are living in child-care institutions. For instance, Section 46 of the Juvenile Justice Act allows financial support to be provided to children only on completion of 18 years, to facilitate their re-integration to the mainstream of society. He doubted if the monetary assistance is alone adequate. How can they be monitored periodically? These are the concerns which he suggested the resource persons to take into consideration during the program.

Before concluding, he flagged that the prerequisite of accurate and empirical data cannot be emphasized enough. He then cited a judgment rendered by the Supreme Court in Sampurna Behura v. Union of India & Ors., where the Court issued a slew of directions to facilitate the implementation of statutory requirements and for improvement of the juvenile justice system in India. One suggestion was to conduct 'bi-annual audits' to assess implementation of the Act. He said that this suggestion will undoubtedly help in in the process of collecting empirical data and in turn assist further decision making. This is because, he said, the common challenge that we face pan-India is to get a clearer picture of the numerous obstacles and their unique effects on each region.

He stressed that there is a need to equate and provide spaces for the voices that we have to hear. In other words, we have to hear the voices who are traditionally not even heard. He concluded his address by saying that the true equity and justice of the society is how fairly it treats its children and the kind of policies it envisions and evolves to ensure that the children become fullest and equal participants as citizens in the nation's journey.