16 years old girl stops her marriage with the help of CHILDLINE

According to recent reports, the number of married girls in the age group of 15 to 19 years in India is down to 51% since the year 2000, the most impressive gain recorded by any country in South Asia, according to the Global Childhood Report by NGO Save the Children. Yet nearly 1.5 million girls in India get married before they turn 18, as per UNICEF. Despite this practice being outlawed, child marriage proves to be one of the worst social evils in our country.

CHILDLINE team received a call from a 16 years old girl from Mandya district in Karnataka informing that her family was marrying her off against her wishes. The girl was not willing to get married, so as final hope to get out of marriage she called Childline 1098.

After receiving information about the case, CHILDLINE team visited the girl’s home along with the DCPU staff and the police. The team made her family aware about the adverse consequences of child marriage on the child’s mental and physical health and also the law that it is illegal to marry a girl before 18 years of age.

After a lot of discussion with the parents, they finally agreed to cancel the marriage at the moment. Later CHILDLINE team presented the girl and her parents to Child Welfare Committee (CWC) with the case details and a written statement was taken from parents stating that they will not marry off their girl child until she reaches the age of marriage. But the child was not willing to stay with her parents, so she was provided shelter at government girls home.

Timely intervention by CHILDLINE team managed to cancel the child marriage with the help of Police, DPCU and CWC.

Disclaimer :  Names and details have been changed to maintain confidentiality as required.  

CHILDLINE team serves justice to a 17 year old sexual abuse victim

Every 15 minutes a child is sexually abused In India, according to the latest government figures. A recent data released by CHILDLINE show that close relatives and neighbours are the key offenders in most of the sexual and physical abuse cases in which children are victims. While boys in the age group 11-15 years are most prone to physical abuses of different nature, girls of the age group 6 to 16 years are most prone to sexual abuse. 

CHILDLINE came across a 17 years old girl from a small town in Hyderabad, who went through same incident. During school summer holidays, the girl visited her uncle’s place to spend few days. One day in absence of her uncle, a 41 years old man living in the neighbourhood invited the girl child to his house and sexually abused her. Later, the child revealed the incident to her family and went directly to police station to register an FIR against the abuser.

As soon as CHILDLINE got information about the case, they rushed to the spot to intervene further. As a standard procedure, CHILDLINE team presented the child before Child Welfare Committee (CWC) and medical tests were suggested by CWC. The medical reports showed positive for sexual abuse. On the basis of medical reports, police arrested the abuser and took him into custody.

CHILDLINE team provided proper counselling to the girl child to overcome this incident. The child is now living with her parents and is now healing physically as well as mentally. 

Disclaimer:  Names and details have been changed to maintain confidentiality as required.

CHILDLINE observes World Day against Child Labour

World Day against Child Labour is an event endorsed by the International Labour Organization (ILO) during which each year June 12th is dedicated to the empowerment of children against the peril of child labour, to create awareness amongst the masses on this evil act and enthuse people to stand up against the harm caused to children. The significance of World Day against Child Labour is important so as to highlight children’s concerns through the public, media and the civil society.

India is sadly the home for the largest number of child labourers in the world. As per the National Census 2011, there are close to 10.1 million child labourers in India in the age group of 5 to 14 years. Unfortunately, despite the judicial efforts, the number of child workers has increased over recent years, particularly in the metro cities where many children move in search of work with a hope to earn money. In many places, children are made to work in dangerous jobs such as logging, mining and construction work as well as exploited as beggars, household servants and even for sex trades. 

The sight of children indulged in some work or the other is very often seen in our everyday lives and surely to the extent that we have accepted the situation as ‘normal’ in India. Most of us put the blame on ‘poverty’ as the main culprit behind child labour and we think that children are only helping their parents in bringing in a stable income. But is this an excuse for these children for not being in school. Education is a basic right and we are failing our children by not enabling them to realize their own right. Many of the children help their parents at work after school, so what is wrong in that, one may ask. But this is how the children get deprived of their time to rest and play, all work and no play.

CHILDLINE 1098, India’s phone helpline service for children in distress, rescues and rehabilitates thousands of child labourers every year throughout the country. During the year 2018-19, CHILDLINE resolved 39,182 cases of child labour that constituted 13% of the total cases received. Child labour cases have increased marginally by 11.71% during the year 2018-19 as compared to the previous year which includes mainly children who are involved in work at restaurant/dhaba, hazardous work, domestic work, beggary and sex trades. It was also observed that 77% of children involved in labour activity were males. (Figures recorded from April 2018 to March 2019)

CHILDLINE has been unceasingly observing this day every year all over the country through various activities like organizing rallies, signature campaigns, pamphlets distribution and street shows etc. in order to alert people on the issue and motivate them to raise their voice. Each city and district in India bustles with events, activities and pledges with people from every nook and corner. CHILDLINE team urges all individuals to mark their support with an uproar of - ‘Say No to Child Labour!’

CHILDLINE saves girl from wrongful medical practice

Healthcare is the right of every individual but due to unavailability of quality infrastructure, basic medicines and shortfall of qualified medical professionals, healthcare services reach only to 60% of the population in India. To address the immediate medical needs of rural and marginalized communities, the government has appointed voluntary health workers who act as the link between the community and the public health facilities and are trained to provide first aid care.

CHILDLINE received a call from a small town nearby district Chamba, Himachal Pradesh. The caller informed that his 3 years old daughter needed a vaccine, but due to carelessness of a community health worker she was injected a wrong vaccine which caused a severe infection in her legs. The local CHILDLINE team of district Chamba, visited the child’s home to further address the issue. After checking the child’s condition, CHILDLINE suggested the parents to take her to a medical care centre. The girl was hospitalised immediately, and after undergoing a small surgery she started to recover.

The intervention was not completed yet, as the people from that particular area demanded to appoint skilled and trained health workers at the Community Health Care so that such incidents can be avoided. Under the advocacy of CHILDLINE team, an application was dropped to the Chief Medical Officer to draw attention towards the case. The CMO ensured that actions would be taken against health care administration and changes would be made according to people’s need.

CHILDLINE successfully restored child’s health back and provided better health services to the community.

Disclaimer:  Names and details have been changed to maintain confidentiality as required.