Govt. does not give any priority to
implementation of ICPS, JJ Act or The POCSO Act. The lethargy and inaction of
the Govt. machinery is a major hindrance in effective implementation of above
laws and schemes meant for children.
In order to deal with this state of affairs
more than 60 Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and activists have come
together as Delhi Child Rights Group (DCRG) to run community based campaign all
over Delhi.
As a first step a press conference cum public meeting
was organized on 27th April,2013 to highlight all aspects of
systematic failures experienced by child rights organizations while
dealing with cases of sexual violence against children. After that a memorandum
of demand was prepared which highlighted all gaps in the system and list of
demands of corrective measures( memorandum attached). It was decided to go to
people in different settlements and colonies of Delhi, raise awareness on the
issue and seek support of people for the memorandum.
This is election time
in many States including Delhi. Therefore, it was decided by the group that we
will have a meeting with all the major political parties in Delhi and submit
the memorandum of demand (https://app.box.com/s/flxz95mj31fq6kp1r3q0)along with 40000 signatures.
In this regard the core group members first met Arvind
Kejariwal the convener of AAP on 14.10.2013. He promised to work with DCRG if
elected to power and has assured to give importance to Child Protection issues
in his party’s manifesto. Yogendra Yadav who is working on the Party’s
manifesto has been given our memorandum along with signatures and factsheet.
Further we met Mr.
Vijay Sharma, Organizing General Secretary, BJP Delhi on 15.10.2013 and shared
our concern on Child Protection issues and submitted the memorandum along with signatures
and factsheet. He assured
us that his party will work on this issue. We have also sent the copy of
memorandum to Mr. Harsh Vardhan, who is preparing the party’s manifesto and he
is the Delhi Chief Ministerial candidate of BJP.
Lastly the core group
went to meet Smt. Shiela Dikshit, CM, Delhi on 22.10.2013 at 9.00 a.m., as per
the scheduled date and time given by the CM office. While she was going inside
her office she asked the core group to hand over the copy of their demands, but
she did not give any assurance whether her party will include the demands in the
party’s manifesto.
Now Delhi Child Right
Group is going submit memorandum of demand along with 40000 signatures to
followings:
State level.
· Lieutenant Governor
· Minister
WCD
· Police commissioner
· DCPCR
National Level.
· Prime Minister
· Home minister
· Minister WCD
· NCPCR
Delhi Child Right Group also planning to organize Round table
meeting/ Dialogue with leaders of Political Parties in third week of November
2013.
Please see the
media stories on the campaign. If any of you interested, we can send you the memorandum,
and other documents.