The Child at the Centre: The Hindu Editorial on Mission Vatsalya

Plans designed for social good do well on intent, but their success depends on whether they are built on principles of sustainability and operate within a framework of accountability. While the center behind the department’s comprehensive reform of women and children’s plans is intended to provide ‘integrated benefits to children and women’, is it designed with rules that will ensure maximum benefits for the shareholders – women and children? Mission Vatsalya, which has been rolled out, is one of the new trio of schemes along with Mission Shakti and Poshan 2.0, which aim to achieve a healthy and happy childhood for every child. The components of Mission Vatsalya include statutory bodies; service delivery structures; institutional care/services; non-institutional community-based care; emergency outreach services; Training and capacity building. Its impact on Child Line, one of the pillars of India’s child protection services, is giving sleepless nights to child rights activists. Childline (1098), a 24-hour toll-free helpline for children in distress, will be operated by the home ministry under Mission Vatsalya, Union minister Smriti Irani said last year, citing the need to ‘preserve data sensitivity’ .

CHILDLINE has been in operation for over 25 years, slowly growing to become one of the largest global networks to aid and rescue children in distress. It has served as a public-private partnership between the government and civil society organizations to provide a first responder safety net and initiate the process of rescue and rehabilitation of children. A road map for implementing the plan is not yet available, but it is understood that police personnel will first respond to the call, later handing over the implementation to NGOs. This comes in the face of the facts enforced during the establishment of Child Line in 1996 – children do not feel comfortable conflating in police personnel. It also sought to reduce the burden on the police force, calling for their assistance only when circumstances so required. This was proved beyond doubt during a short-lived experiment in Chennai around 2003, when Childline calls were diverted to all-women police stations (AWPS) – they were flooded with calls, disrupting routine work. Sometimes, all the kids wanted was to spend some time talking to someone, or they were making multiple blank calls before they dared to tell everyone. In many cases the intervention of the police was not required at all. The old system was hurriedly revived, and order was restored. The Center would do well to incorporate these responses as it prepares a road map for a key aspect of child protection. Above all, it must consider the issue from the point of view of the principal beneficiary of the scheme – the child – and ensure that his safety, security and happiness is ensured in the bond born of trust, which is necessarily in the letter. is beyond. law.