Are Juvenile Homes Fit For Justice?

An independent high power judicial committee inquiry must be carried out to expose what forced children to leave the Juvenile home for boys

The response of the Karnataka Government to the escape of 46 children from the Juvenile Home for Boys has been nothing short of shocking. It demonstrates an extremely aggressive and callous response to a problem that is deep rooted, volatile and totally violates the rights of Children.

Instead of admitting their failure to perform their role as a Juvenile Home and enquiring into factors that forced 46 children to leave their premises at risk to their lives and well-being, the government has set up police teams to ‘nab’ children and parents have been ordered to bring them back to the Juvenile Home – where they are most likely to receive a very hostile reception and further punitive action on their return. 

We demand that an autonomous judicial high power committee consisting prominent citizens in this field and a judge be set up to inquire into the entire matter.   Representatives of NGOs should accompany the police teams that are on the look out for children. When found, the children should be taken to a place that has a protective environment with an NGO that is a Fit person institution until the inquiry is completed and their inputs should form an important part of the inquiry.

It is known beyond doubt that these homes fall shamefully short of what is expected of them.  Instead of admitting their failure and genuinely attempting to set matters right, the remedial measure that the government proposes is to increase the number of guards to the ratio of 1 guard for 20 children. They also now propose to deploy police at the Juvenile Home. The Minister of Women and Child Welfare is quoted in national newspaper as having said ‘It appears from the present staff strength that the juvenile home is treating these juvenile offenders as inmates of a students hostel. But the procedure has to be changed, as they are offenders’. 

The State also said that they will appeal against the proposed amendment to the Juvenile Justice Board that increases the age limit of children in conflict with law up to 18 years as the State sees the age group of 16 – 18 as ‘trouble some’.

All these responses are in gross violation of the rights of the children, the protection of their best interests and of the spirit of the Juvenile Justice Act. We cannot brand adolescents as a ‘difficult age’ as it has been done for decades. That is an age that has tremendous energy and potential and we have to learn to treat adolescents with dignity and to provide them affection, care, protection and means of respectful livelihoods.

The lacune in the government juvenile institutions have been brought to the notice of the concerned authorities number of times, over the years by children, NGOs, Child Welfare Committees and Makkala Sahaya Vani. However, they have been ignored. This is a clear case of non-fulfilment of responsibilities by the concerned authorities and the persons responsible must be brought before the law.

The juvenile homes are supposed to be places that offer care and protection to children who are in conflict with law – in order to heal them and provide them a safe haven to gain life skills, education and vocational education so that they are able to realise their full potential. There are stringent norms that the Government sets up for ‘fit person institution’ recognition that they give to NGOs in order to achieve this. Yet, these norms are blatantly violated in the government run institutions that lack basic facilities, do not have staff with counselling skills and in many of them, the security guard is the person in charge.  Who is the authority that certifies whether or not a government run institution is fit to perform its role? What are the norms for its effective performance?  Who is the authority to monitor it on a regular basis?

These are some questions that require immediate answers.

The Concerned for Working Children