The Centre has decided to take over the child helpline service operated by NGOs since its inception in 1998. There is a backstory worth telling in the hope it might prompt a review of the decision.
In 1996 when I joined the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, I was assigned the Social Defence portfolio. The job entailed formulating policies and programmes for the destitute, principally children, older persons, beggars and drug addicts. KB Saxena, the Secretary, briefed me. The common thread in your assignment, he said, is looking after the most vulnerable people whose welfare is the state’s responsibility, but realistically speaking, government officials will not attend to. For this reason, you will need to work closely with voluntary organisations. Early in the assignment, I discovered a study by Don Bosco, Kolkata, and the city’s police commissioner. Police officers in plain clothes were assigned to roam the streets with volunteers and interact with destitute children. Much to the chagrin of the police — graciously accepted by the commissioner — they were more hated and feared by the helpless children than even goondas and rogues who bullied them.
I also encountered a protracted turf war between the Ministries of Home Affairs and Social Justice & Empowerment. The argument was that the care and protection of the vulnerable was not primarily a law and order issue. The exaggerated emphasis on the enforcement of existing laws ignoring the fact that crime is an offshoot of a dysfunctional society, and a byproduct of the interaction between the individual and his environment, was hard to explain to MHA mandarins. Tellingly, the report of the All India Committee (1980-83) on Jail Reforms chaired by Justice Anand Narain Mulla, constituted by the MHA, had nudged the government to evolve a correctional strategy and create a Ministry of Welfare, which was later renamed Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. The committee recommended a holistic approach to protecting against crime and rehabilitating offenders through institutional and non-institutional services. Such an approach involved the participation of both the state and the civil society. It took the PM to finally adjudicate in favour of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. The Juvenile Justice Act 1986 superseded the various state Children’s Acts of 1956. The “chota jails” of destitute and delinquent children became state-run children’s homes under the new Act. Subsequent amendments allowed NGOs to set up homes for children under the close watch of the state following a judicial procedure.
A pilot project at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences nurtured the concept of a helpline for children in need in Mumbai. Anand Bordia, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, attended a board meeting of the institute as a government nominee. He was distressed by the institute abandoning the project for want of funding. The experiment was successful, and the subject was the core mandate of the Social Defence Division he headed.
Minister Maneka Gandhi needed no convincing for the Ministry to carry forward the project. The government constituted the Childline Foundation with members drawn from civil society, academia and the corporate world. The Department of Telecommunications assigned the toll-free national child helpline an easy-to-remember shortcode, 1098. The NGOs working with street children were responsible for operating the helpline. Surveys showed that children would not call a number staffed by a government employee, certainly not the police. Given the alternate lifestyles of these children, it soon became apparent their peers were in the best position to take the phone calls and understand the gravity of the problem and the exact location of the harried child.
Over 25 years, Childline became the lifeline of needy children. It assists orphans, destitute, runaway and lost children. It is the first port of call of the police when they find an uncared-for child. The district administration seeks the help of Childline to rescue child labourers and drug addicts. Railways provide booths for social workers of Childline who scan every train known to bring runaway or trafficked children. Citizens dial 1098 to report children in need of help.
Why is the government fixing a problem that does not exist by taking over the Childline without assigning any reason and without any recommendation from a ground agency? Why not let the bell ring?
The writer is a former civil servant
