The Child Protection - A Fiction

Contents: Preface. 1. Introduction. 2. Child protection in India. 3. Child protection programmes. 4. Child protection policies and legislations. 5. National Plan of Action for Children (2005). 6. A protective environment for children. 7. Child protection in Eleventh Five Year Plan. Annexure.

"The future of a nation and the prosperity of the people depend on the health and happiness of its children and the care they receive from family and society to grow up as good human beings and citizens. Their upbringing in a proper environment promoting their health, education and mental development is an important commitment.

Despite such clear commitment to child protection enshrined in the Constitution of India and the UN Convention on the rights of the Child ratified by India in 1992, and the two optional protocols ratified in 2005, and the various national and international commitments made, children continue to remain vulnerable with the number of those needing care and protection is ever increasing. Five decades of planned development has indeed failed to address the critical issue of Child Protection. And in these many years a lot has changed in the lives of people, particularly children that calls of a re-examination of the understanding of Child Protection itself.

Let us introspect and assess our role in improving their status, particularly of those who suffer deprivation and malnutrition, confront problems of survival and lose their childhood by taking up responsibilities of earning for them and their families early in their lives." (jacket)