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By Sriranjini Vadiraj Children picked up for theft and assault are lodged at observation homes. Children in need of care and protection, including runaways, end up here too. What are the conditions in these homes? Has the Juvenile Justice Act passed eight years ago made any difference? This article finds out
“I want to go to a proper hostel where I can study and play like other children. I don’t like it here. The older boys beat us and trouble us. The caretaker too beats us if we don’t listen to him,” says 13-year-old Sonu who was sent to an observation home in Pune on charges of theft. Sonu has been here for two weeks now and is among 61 other boys who are lodged at the observation home for various offences like theft and assault. Some are just runaways who have been picked up by the police and dropped off at the observation home. While most children their age battle adolescence, Sonu and his friends are busy fighting court cases. Many of them have no idea where their parents are or where they are going to go once they are released. The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act 2000 that was passed eight years ago is meant to safeguard the rights of children like Sonu. The Act is applicable to all states except Jammu and Kashmir, and is in keeping with the guidelines set down in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN CRC). The Juvenile Justice Act refers to two categories of children -- children who have committed offences, or ‘children in conflict with the law’, and runaways, orphans and beggars who are classified as ‘children in need of care and protection’. In Maharashtra there are 46 observation homes that cater to over 9,000-10,000 children from both categories. These homes are run independently by the State Department for Women and Child Welfare, or in collaboration with voluntary organisations. There are seven observation homes in Pune district, of which five are located within Pune city. The state government runs two, and the remaining three are public charitable trusts. The State Department for Women and Child Welfare provides funding at the rate of Rs 633 per child, in addition to appointing staff members for the homes and taking care of their salaries. Other expenses depend on the generosity of individual donors. The Juvenile Justice Act has established two bodies -- the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) to specifically address the needs of ‘children in need of care and protection’ and the Juvenile Justice Board to look into matters concerning ‘children in conflict with the law’. Both committees are constituted either for every district or a group of districts in the state. Children who need care and protection are brought to the observation homes either by the police or a child rights organisation. Sometimes the child himself may opt to stay in an observation home. The CWC consists of a chairperson and four other members, at least one of them a woman. While all members are non-judicial persons, they exercise the powers of a magistrate. The committee meets thrice a week and is the final authority on the disposal of cases and rehabilitation of children. In the case of ‘children in conflict with the law’, the Act mandates that after being apprehended the child must be brought before the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) within 24 hours, or a metropolitan court that may be holding charge of the JJB. The Juvenile Justice Board has three members, the judge and two people outside the judiciary system who are nevertheless engaged in work related to child rights. The board meets twice a week. After appearing before the JJB, the child is usually sent to an observation home for safe custody. The JJB makes an assessment of the situation and either releases the child on bail or recommends that she/he be lodged in an observation home until the board arrives at a decision on the matter. Until such time, the child is entitled to adequate care by way of accommodation, education, skills training and counselling so that she/he is able to lead as normal a life as possible. Children who are detained in observation homes are from typically poor families; they have had few opportunities to attend regular school, interact with children their age or have access to books and play material. They have already experienced a great deal of marginalisation in their lives. Many have faced abuse and exploitation; some have been severely neglected by their parents causing them to leave their families and resort to crime. Therefore when these children are brought to the observation home they are in immediate need of care and guidance. Despite the Act, however, observation homes have not achieved the objectives for which they have been set up. For instance they still lack adequate facilities for children in conflict with the law. A normal day for the children goes somewhat like this. The boys live in a big dormitory that they rarely move out of. This is where they eat, sleep, and occasionally play games. A bell rings at noon and they are served lunch. After this they are left to entertain themselves within the confines of the hall, with a caretaker watching over them all the time. Pune-based human rights lawyer Asim Sarode, who is involved in fighting for the rights of children like these, says a lot still needs to change in the juvenile justice system. “The children are not a priority as they are not voters. They are poor and illiterate and hence people get away with providing inadequate facilities. The feeling that they deserve what they get is still rampant,” he says. What’s worse is that there is hardly any segregation of children in conflict with the law and children in need of care and protection. Children in need of care and protection have regular visitors and are often allowed to go out with them. They also have access to education, sports and a library; some have even won scholarships. On the other hand, children in conflict with the law are usually not from the same city and so rarely have any visitors. The boys, mostly between the ages of 13 and 18, sit huddled together watching television the whole day. Fourteen-year-old Manish complains: “They allow the other boys (non-offenders) to play, attend school and go out on excursions. They don’t allow us to do anything. We are not permitted to leave this hall at all.” The superintendent of one observation home, Sonawane, says: “Vocational training is imparted to the children -- we have organised courses in repairing mobile phones and washing machines, pottery, etc, but we don’t have a fixed schedule for this. We organise it as and when we can.” And on days when there are no programmes organised? “We clean the premises of the remand home and wash dishes when there is nothing to do,” says 14-year-old Rohit. The children are taken to a child guidance cell located on the premises of the home, in groups of 10 every day. “At the child guidance cell we teach them book-binding, screen printing, gardening, plumbing, etc, but this takes place only occasionally. There are no activities that are conducted on a regular basis. We need a special teacher who will impart non-formal education. The suggestion has been put forward many times, and we are still waiting,” says Vasanti Kashid, a social worker who works with the children. Although there have been sporadic efforts to provide better educational opportunities at the observation homes, they have largely been unsuccessful. Chairperson of the Child Welfare Committee, Ram Belwadi, a retired IAS officer, says: “It is a sheer poverty of ideas. Financial support is available from the government, and local funds are also available. But what facilities there are in the remand home depends entirely on the superintendent. We must ask ourselves what the children need -- that is our primary goal.” Children can sometimes be transferred to a vocational training institute for offenders, Yerwada Industrial School, if an appeal is made to the judge. But often the process is delayed as the probation officer who has to issue a permission letter does nothing. Or when the child is being released, if she/he shows an interest in going back to school or university the authorities at the observation home procure the application form and help the child fill it up. They also write a ‘request letter’ to the institution asking that the child be admitted. However, it is often seen that children in conflict with the law are school drop-outs and are not in a position to go back to regular school. Hence, alternatives such as vocational education and training must be seriously implemented whilst they are still in the observation home. The primary task of providing vocational education and training to children is to increase their chances of employment when they are released, and thereby reduce recidivism. However, there has been no sustained commitment to this issue by the government or civil society. NGOs sometimes visit observation homes to conduct various games and cultural programmes. But, while this undoubtedly provides the children an opportunity to interact with ‘outsiders’ it does not equip them to become independent and responsible members of society. Vikas Walunkar, a journalist who grew up in a remand home in the 1950s has fond memories of his stay there. “The facilities were good in those days. We were cared for with great love and affection. We were taken on field trips and we interacted with families from outside. People accepted us more easily. These days, although there are some facilities for children in observation homes they are not good enough. There must be a reformation of the entire system,” he says. “There must also be a change in the mindset of people. Children who have committed offences have to live with the guilt all their lives. They must be shown some direction as they are unable to cope with life outside once they are released.” Slow dismissal of cases Another area of serious neglect is the shockingly slow justice system. At the time of writing this article there were over 3,500 cases pending with the juvenile justice court -- all related to ‘children in conflict with the law’. . The two ‘non-judiciary’ members have to be present at the time of the hearing; the judge cannot sign the deposition in their absence. But it has been a few weeks since the tenure of the earlier members ended and there is still no sign of any new members being appointed. Mahendra Gaikwad, district officer of the Department for Women and Child Welfare in Pune, said: “The government resolution is yet to come. We have selected the members and they should be appointed by mid-July.” Until then it’s a long wait for the children, and the number of pending cases continues to rise. There are also delays due to witnesses not turning up in court and delays in cross-examination. Independent lawyer Ravi Sonawane who was present at one of the court hearings says that the boys he is representing were charged with theft in 2004. They have been summoned only in 2008. “The juvenile court meets only twice a week, for half a day. How many cases can they look at? Moreover, they look at cases from all over the district. This is why cases drag on for years. As a result, children who have committed minor crimes are often forced to plead guilty. This at least allows them to do community service, like planting trees, and so carry on with their lives.” This may make things easy for the judiciary, but for the children who have committed the offences it only ensures that they are further stigmatised. Add to this the fact that very often members of the Juvenile Justice Board are not well-versed in the Act itself. “We are not clear ourselves. We have asked them to give us training, but it hasn’t happened,” says Anuradha Sahasrabudhe, a member of the JJB and the director of Child Line, Pune. This is a charge the State Department for Women and Child Welfare strongly refutes. “We have conducted training,” says Mahendra Gaikwad. “We conducted 12 training programmes in the year 2005 and another in 2006. Some people couldn’t attend it as they had prior commitments.” Caught in the midst of unending bureaucracy and indifference are young boys and girls whose future hangs in the balance. As Pune-based social worker Poornima Gadia says: “The situation cannot be reversed unless there is a change in attitude at all levels.” (Sriranjini Vadiraj is a Pune-based researcher and journalist) InfoChange News & Features, August 2008
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