A few months ago there occurred an incident where allegedly the head of an NGO sexually abused a child who was in his care. The handling of the case by some NGOs and State Departments was appalling from all perspectives and resulted in further violations of the said child’s rights. The incident was unduly publicised, the child’s identity was revealed and her privacy was violated. She was shunted from one institution to another, including the State Juvenile Home, with little concern for her physical or mental condition. Her needs and concerns did not seem to figure at all in any of the so-called remedial interventions. All the children in the child belonged to have also now become victims of these circumstances.

This case has sparked off a wide range of discussions among the NGO community regarding children’s rights, the ‘best interests of the child’ and the need for a code of conduct for NGO working with children. In this connection there have been several meetings and in one such meeting a ‘code of conduct’ drafted by 22 TDH-G partners was circulated. This is attached.

This TDH ‘Code’ is very simplistic and unreal. We, at the Concerned for Working Children are distressed to note that several of the suggestions put forth by the 22 organisations are in effect attempts to segregate men and women, boys and girls, in order to ‘protect’ them from abuse.

Such artificial divisions are not only unrealistic, they are also very harmful. They set up ‘ghettos’ instead of creating an open and safe society. They are in fact contrary to the vision many of us hold of a just and discrimination free world in which men and women are partnership with each other. It also does not seem to consider the possibility of persons of the same sex abusing each other, or that abuse is not only sexual or physical. This code does not go beyond the framework of physical abuse and ignores issues such as emotional harassment, oppression, excessive control, generation of fear, curtailment of self-expression etc.

We believe that in any given situation children and their all-round wellbeing have to be our primary and most important concern. As organisations committed to children/s rights we have to develop and implement vigorous self regulatory systems which are transparent and are accountable to the children we work with, their communities and to the society.

The Concerned for Working Children has Codes of Conduct on a variety of issues. The Code governing the residential care of children covers issues such as recruitment, induction, conflict and crisis management, counseling procedures, reporting procedures etc. It also contains codes for adults who accompany children. The resource persons and visitors too are required to follows codes of conduct in keeping with vision of the organisation. The children who are the residents of the Training Programme have an elected body of children. This body is actively involved in the running of the programmes as well as in monitoring and evaluation of the entire programme, including the environment it takes place in. Children have forums as well as several channels of communication they have access to in order to express their opinions and experiences. They also receive inputs in how and where to lodge complaints if required.

We sincerely hope that there will be no more knee-jerk reactions to the issue of Child Sexual Abuse. It is a very complex area, which needs to be looked at with great sensitivity, an in-depth understanding of children’s rights, human psychology, societal structures, legal procedures and a host of other issues.

There is also a considerable amount of literature and experience already existing in this area. Let us learn from them and move further ahead.