Child Right Governance in India and other Laws Related to it
Abstract
Perhaps the most well-known definition of ‘global governance’, James Rosenau designates it as ‘organisations of rubrics at all stages of hominoid action – from the domestic to the worldwide organisation.’ Today the perception of authority has wedged the attention of researchers in fields like political science, economics, business studies, and global relations to analyse an inclusive variety of marvels such as school life, worldwide policy-making, global organisations, public health, monetary dealings, street gangs or traffic rules. Children and youth are in many circumstances obtainable as ruled by others – parents, teachers, social services, religious establishments, or out of control. For youthful scholars, though, the opposite has been basic in the influence of the field of juvenile studies over the last decades. The intervention of children and young people certainly also impact the schemes of guidelines and governance that border them. They are thus as much theme to these systems as they can be energetic and shapers of them, in many cases organised with or in equivalent to the adults adjacent them. Contempt this heading of children as being both marks and shapers of governance, though, with some exceptions, the methodical study of the governance of children and youth have established little consideration within childhood studies as well as to the examination of how child rights are assumed to form in national and multinational politics, law and society.
Introduction
Three decades after the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child by the UN General Assembly in 1989 (hereinafter UNCRC). The human rights of children as spoken in the UNCRC have expanded hegemonic rank in policy-making and prejudiced an extensive series of radical and societal practices as well as acquaintance creation on children and childhood. At the same time, children’s rights have become an obvious tool, not only to guard and liberate children from domination but also to administer, legalise, and control broods and youths.
There are four main sections to the UNCRC:
* The Preface, which sets out the major basic philosophies of the UNCRC and provides a background for it,
* The functional articles, which set out the rights of all children and the responsibilities of administrations (Part I, Articles 1-41),
* The operational necessities, which outline in what way acquiescence with the UNCRC is to be supervised and nurtured (Part II, Articles 42-45) and
* The circumstances under which the UNCRC comes into force (Part III, Articles 46-54).
Constitutional Provisions relating to Children
* The framers of our Constitution were well recognised the fact the improvement of the state can be accomplished by the progress of the children of the state & it is crucial to guard the children against abuse as well. The following are the provisions of the Indian Constitution relating to children:
* Article 14 states that the State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal defence of the laws within the territory of India.
* Article 15(3) states that nothing in this article shall avert the State from making any special provision for women and children.
* Article 21 states that no person shall be destitute of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.
* Article 21A provides that the State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen years in such manner as the State may, by law, determine.
* Article 23(1) provides that traffic in human beings and the beggar and other similar forms of forced labour are prohibited, and any contravention of this provision shall be an offence punishable under the law.
* Article 24 provides that no child below the age of fourteen years shall be employed to work in any factory or mine or engaged in any other hazardous employment.
* Article 29(2) provides that no citizen shall be denied admission into any educational institution maintained by the State or receiving aid out of State funds on grounds only of religion, race, caste, language, or any of them.
* Article 39(e) provides that the shall, in particular, direct its policy towards securing that the health and strength of workers, men, and women, and the tender age of children are not abused and that citizens are not forced by economic necessity to enter avocations unsuited to their age or strength.
* Article 39(f) provides that the shall, in particular, direct its policy towards securing that children are given opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner and conditions of freedom and dignity and that childhood and youth are protected against exploitation and moral and material abandonment.
* Article 45 provides that the State shall endeavour to provide early childhood care and education for all children until they complete the age of six years.
* Article 47 provides that the State shall regard the raising of the level of nutrition and the standard of living of its people and the improvement of public health as among its primary duties.
* Article 51A(k) provides that it shall be the duty of every citizen of India who is a parent or guardian to provide opportunities for education to his child or, as the case may be, ward between the age of six and fourteen years.
Conclusion
The National Policy for Children, 1974 acknowledged that children are the ‘ultimate strength of the nation’. Children are the future of the state. No sophisticated nation can ever progress without appropriate strength & enlightening expansion of their children. The Government must change its strategies towards the advancement of children. All protruding guidelines of the Government must comprehend necessities linking to children. The Constitution of India is designed at making India a Welfare Nation & for attaining it, the advancement of the children of our state is crucial. All children deserve equality, despite their variance. They are permitted all of these rights, no matter what race, colour, religion, language, ethnicity, gender, or abilities define them. As justice Bhagwati has precisely recited, “the child is a personality with an actuality, a nature and dimensions of its own, who must be facilitated to find them, to grow into the adulthood, into roundness on corporeal and vigorous vigour and most extent, complexity, and elevation of its sensitive, academic and mystical being”. Children necessitate supervision and sustenance. They do not know the mechanics of life. It is for inhabitants like us to take their hands and show them the right way. Social workers play a significant role in eliminating social evils, and thus they are needed for sterner investigation on their prerequisite and specialised volume.
Although there is much regulation by the administration to limit many social evils against children, the governments are not taking any adequate steps to guarantee that children, the forthcoming citizens of our country, are dwindling. These are the children that would prime our country into a strong and affluent nation. The final proclamation on child rights is conceivable only if there is worldwide assistance and execution of the right to expansion. The amplified crime rate in contradiction of the children, even after ratifying so many laws & executing them, has elevated an upsetting apprehension all over the world as children are being misrepresented for gratifying some people’s illegal determinations. So along with various laws, it is also our social accountability to take care of the children & to protect their rights. Children, owing to their emerging minds, are susceptible to the situation they are in. It is of extreme status that such situation is made appropriate for their development and expansion, nevertheless of whether such child is in a skirmish with law or not and be given satisfactory care and shield of the law. No nation can afford embellishment if children of such country agonise, therefore India, with the help of numerous international, national, and state apparatuses, try to secure the rights of the children as has been deliberated above.
Disclaimer: Kindly note that the views and opinions expressed are of the author(s) not Law Colloquy.
References:
* Fundamentals of Child Rights in India | Save the Children India
* Child Rights in India | Right To Education And Health - Smile Foundation (smilefoundationindia.org)
* Constitution of India | HAQ : Centre for Child Rights (haqcrc.org)
Statutes
* Article 14
* Article 15(3)
* Article 21
* Article 21A
* Article 23(1)
* Article 24
* Article 29(2)
* Article 39(e)
* Article 39(f)
* Article 45
* Article 47
* Article 51A(k)
* The Guardian and Wards Act 1890
* The Child Marriage Restraint Act 1929
* The Orphanages and Other Charitable Homes (Supervision and Control) Act 1960
Apprentices Act 1961
* The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986
* The Infant Milk Substitutes, Feeding Bottles and Infant Foods (Regulation of Production, Supply and Distribution) Act 1992
* The Pre-Natal Diagnostic Technique (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act 1994
* The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2000
* National Policy on Education, 1986
* National Policy on Child Labour, 1987
* National Health Policy, 2002
Case Laws
* M.C. Mehta Vs. State of Tamil Nadu and Others AIR 1991 SC 417; AIR 1997 SC 699
* Bandhua Mukti Morcha Vs. Union of India and others AIR 1984 SC 802
