Rajeev Chandrashekhar releases national action report to prevent atrocities on children
- MP Rajeev Chandrashekhar released a national action report regarding preventing atrocities against children at New Delhi.
- He said for commercial purposes children are being abducted, trafficked, their childhood stolen and are being pushed into illegal activities.
- There are rules formed to prevent such heinous acts, those legal rules must be implemented effectively.
- Child trafficking is a Rs 2200 crore illegal business. This must be stopped he said.
FollowMP Rajeev Chandrashekhar released a national action report regarding preventing atrocities against children at New Delhi on Saturday, reported Kannada Prabha.
Speaking on the occasion Rajeev Chandrashekhar said for commercial purposes children are being abducted, trafficked, their childhood stolen and are being pushed into illegal activities. There are rules formed to prevent such heinous acts, those legal rules must be implemented effectively.
Young girls of age between 6 and 9 are being pushed into flesh trade by trafficking to other countries. This is a Rs 2200 crore illegal business. This must be stopped he said.
The lawmaker said while efforts by individuals and the civil society were “well-meaning”, the menace has assumed a form that only an “institutional approach” can address. He blamed “years of neglect” by various governments for this.
The independent Rajya Sabha member from Bengaluru launched a National Action Plan against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (NAPCSEC) during a press conference in New Delhi. “While we talk of girls’ education and development, the issue of girls’ safety and their exploitation has never been made part of the mainstream discussion,” Chandrasekhar said. “The problem has been that we have not been institutionally organised,” he said. Asked why he believed it hasn’t been accorded a political priority so far, the lawmaker replied, “I think there has been a basic reluctance to accept it as a major problem.”
“But if we as a society come together and collectively make it an issue, the government will respond,” he said. The NAPCSEC plan has proposed creation of a national child grid, on the lines of NATGRID, for timely action.
P M Nair, Chair-Professor at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai, also attended the event. Nair, a retired IPS officer, said the need was to keep the ‘customer’ at the centrality of this proposed framework. “That is how the demand would be choked. These ‘customers’ are treated as mere witnesses and that is what needs to change. They should instead be named and shamed,” he said.
According to the NCRB data provided by the National Coalition for Protection of Children, an initiative by Chandrasekhar, “The total number of child trafficking cases reported in India in 2015 was 3,490 with an offender conviction report of 14.3 per cent.” Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal are among the states from which girls are picked up for prostitution at an early age. Delhi, Mumbai and Goa are some of the places where they end up, living a hellish life, the NCPOC said.
with PTI inputs
