We would like to draw your attention to breaches of the Juvenile Justice Act 2000 by the Department of Women and Child Development (DWCD). A calendar brought out by the DWCD refers to children who were part of juvenile observation facilities as children who have committed a crime (apradha maadi). This taints the children as criminals and fails to recognise the fact that everyone makes mistakes. It is particularly cruel to refer to children as criminals. Nagasimha G Rao Associate Director of the Child’s Rights Trust, argues that the phrase wrong act (tappu) should have been used instead.
Mathews Philip, Executive Director of Sichrem, says “they cannot publish words like guilty, accused and delinquent for children.” To compound the problem the DWCD also published the picture of a child and details of the facility. This clearly breaches the anonymity that children in juvenile observation facilities should benefit from.
The calendar has a circulation of 10,000 and the DWCD has therefore managed to propagate these smears against children in juvenile observation facilities to a wide section of Karnataka.
To read the press coverage: http://expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?sectionname=bangalore&Title=govt-told-to-mind-its-language&artid=191306
