The year 2025 has witnessed many conversations on violence against the girl child. The Juvenile Justice Committee of the Supreme Court of India, along with those of the High Courts, organised consultations, planning and programming on the theme.
Unfortunately, the State and its instrumentalities limit their imagination of violence against children to offences covered in the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 (JJ Act). Sexual offences come within the ambit of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, (POCSO). Additionally the offences recorded in the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) get some time and attention of the State too.
The State, society and citizens limit their understanding of violence against children and the everyday brutalities in plain sight go unaddressed. These brutalities go on to trap the children in the vicious cycle of poverty and create adverse childhood experiences (ACE), which becomes the fountainhead of children in conflict with law.
The current state of basic education is inadequate. Legislation on the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, (RTE) has resulted in making access to education a fundamental right. But quality education is still a distant dream for many children. Coupled with the recent practise of divestment in government schools, schools’ merger and consolidation in many states, many children are forced to commute long distances to access basic education. For first generation learners, quality education in the neighbourhood is the only hope to escape the vicious cycle of poverty. But with the spate of schools shutting down in state after state, vulnerable children from far-flung places will be forced to commute longer distances and go to schools where they might be bullied and their parents wouldn’t have a voice in the School Management Committees (SMC).
The Unnikrishnan v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1993) judgment had already established that Article 21 safeguards the right to life with dignity. This judgment paved the way for reading up the Right to Life to interpret every intervention that makes life worth living and the Right to Education is integral to it.
The nutrition component of the National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA) is getting attention in State programming. Considering the linkage of nutrition and cognitive development that furthers the life chances of a child, there is need for more to be done. With runaway food inflation, nutritious food and diet diversity are challenges that many households are forced to deal with. Public-financed support, especially for nutritious food for children in the anganwadi centres, in school meal programmes and in supplementary nutrition, is not just a food specific intervention but an intervention to enable children to achieve their full potential. A child deprived of nutrition is a child living an inadequate life with shrunken possibilities.
Child labour is co-terminus with cheap labour and it continues in many forms. The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016, and has resulted in definitional changes in hazardous practices and exemptions for family enterprises. The amendments and penalty provisions are considered a step up by many anti-child labour advocates. However, implementation loopholes result in many children working in plain sight, being pledged to work. The structural cause of household poverty - exploitation - is still unaddressed.
Cases like MC Mehta v. State of Tamil Nadu (1996) established that the State has an obligation to protect children's welfare and end child labour in match and fireworks industries. Similarly, the Bachpan Bachao Andolan v. Union of India (2011) judgement strengthened enforcement mechanisms against child trafficking and bonded labour. The socio-structural reasons that enable child labour need to be addressed.
India ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1992. The UNCRC is guided by the principles of “Best interests of the Child”, “Participation” and “Non-discrimination”. The four categories of rights that the substantive part of the UNCRC encompass are survival, protection, development and participation. They are interconnected and intertwined. While the State and its instrumentalities finance, programme and focus on survival and protection, a lot more needs to be done to enable participation and development. When India ratified the UNCRC, it signed up to make all the four categories of rights justiciable and enforceable so that abuses are seen as acts of violence against children. Recognising and factoring the voice and agency of the children while designing taxpayer-funded programmes for children needs more attention and budgetary allocation.
We need to understand that abuses of children's rights are not just isolated instances, but are related to socio-economic realities. When families cannot afford nutritious meals, when parents must move for work and when communities lack basic civic infrastructure, children are the ones who suffer the most from these systemic failures. In the case of Bandhua Mukti Morcha v. Union of India (1984), the Court recognised this inter-linkage while establishing that bonded labour often emerges from poverty and that the State has the obligation to address root causes, not just symptoms. We must create a society in which rights of children are viewed as moral and constitutional mandates rather than as charitable endeavours.
There are still substantive gaps between policy and practice. Although laws are in place, the programmes meant to bring about change on the ground are under-funded and inconsistently implemented. Although the Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS), now re-christened Mission Vatsalya, has been designed to provide a safety net, child welfare committees still lack sufficient funding and human resources. The Track Child portal was created to locate missing children, yet inter-state coordination continues to be a persistent challenge. Regular social audits, strong monitoring mechanisms with citizens’ and civil society engagement and, above all, grievance redressal systems that children themselves can access, are equally essential.
Prof Biraj Swain is the Chief Minister’s Chair Professor cum Director of Centre for Child Rights at the National Law University Odisha (NLUO).
Avismrita S Mishra is pursuing LL.M. at NLUO.
Jyotirmaya Choudhary is pursuing BA.LL.B. at NLUO.
Views are personal.