Children’s issues: India
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Shelter homes
2018: 1/3 children left there by single parents
Forced To Live Apart, They Hope To Be Reunited
Of the over 3.7 lakh children lodged in homes meant for care of children in vulnerable circumstances across India in 2016-17, over 1.2 lakh were the offspring of single parents. That’s more than double that of orphan, abandoned and surrendered children.
According to data collected from some 9,600 childcare institutions and homes between January 2016 and March 2017, single parents often send their children to care homes to ensure their safety and well-being. In such cases, the child remains in touch with the parent and may later be reunited.
Of 3.7 lakh children in need of care and protection, 5,900 children in the age group of 0-6 years were orphans, abandoned and surrendered. There were 50,267 orphan, abandoned and surrendered children aged 7-18.
States with the highest number of children with single parents living in homes are Tamil Nadu (31,098), Maharashtra (21,260), Andhra Pradesh (10,113), Karnataka (10,080) and Kerala (10,782). There are 65,962 boys and 54,096 girls in this category.
Shelter homes: AP, Kerala, TN have highest no. of girls
There were 60 children in the transgender category. While Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu had the highest number of girls, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra had the highest number of boys in this category staying in homes. The study busts the notion that children’s homes run by the government and NGOs are spaces for those normally referred to as runaway, missing, abandoned, trafficked and orphaned. Explaining the presence of children of single parents in such large numbers, the report said such parents often send their kids to care homes to ensure safety and wellbeing of the child. In such cases, the child remains in touch with the parent and is eventually reunited based on an assessment of the situation by the child welfare committee authorised for the purpose under the Juvenile Justice Act.
“A non-conducive social environment or the inability to provide for basic needs forces parents to take this decision,” the report said.
Former chairperson of a child welfare committee (CWC) in Delhi and honorary secretary of NGO Shakti Shalini Dr Bharti Sharma said many of these single parents who come to the CWCs lack social support systems. It could be a woman caught in commercial sexual exploitation in a red light area seeking support for her child.
Speaking to TOI, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights chairperson Priyank Kanoongo said, “Many of these children would not need to go to an institutional set-up if there were alternatives available in society. We are studying ways to execute foster care and sponsorship programmes.”
‘1.8L living in childcare institutions as parents unfit to take care
January 22, 2019: The Times of India
An analysis of data from over 9,500 children homes from across India reveals there is a significantly large number of children housed in them whose parents or guardian have been declared ‘unfit or incapacitated to take care’ of the kids by the child welfare committee.
There are 5,291 children in the age group of 0-6 years and 1,78,885 in the age group of 7-18 years in CCIs/Homes who fall in the category where their guardians are unfit to take care of them. The number of boys was 17.2 % more than girls. “Amongst these, the child care institutions in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu have maximum number of such children,” the report noted. At the time of the mapping exercise in 2016-17 there were 3.77 lakh children lodged across homes. The analysis steered by a committee set-up by the ministry of women and child development has been put out in the public domain on the WCD ministry’s website.
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Children’s issues: India
