THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In a bid to provide some solace for the Child Care Institutions (CCI) that have been bogged down by stringent clauses of the Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act (Care and Protection of Children) enacted by the Centre, the state will frame rules for the Act before November, with some relaxations. The relaxation will be provided for infrastructure and manpower related clauses.
Touted to be a game changer in the fight for securing the interests of children who find childcare institutions as their last solace, JJ Act has been hailed as a noble initiative intended to improve the government monitoring over the CCIs. However, there were reservations regarding certain clauses in the act that made functioning of CCIs tough for the managements. The objections raised by most CCIs were regarding the infrastructure and manpower part that the act envisaged for CCIs.
As per the Act, a child needs to be given a minimum living space of 40 sq ft and a fixed number of employees (one warden for every 10 kids). The act also made it mandatory for the institutions that house Children in Conflict with Law to have various full-time staff, including psychologists, educator, Yoga trainer, etc. Since these clauses required heavy investment, certain CCIs were reluctant to endorse the JJ Act fully. It was in this context the decision was taken to provide some relaxation to the act. “We’ve already held a two-round meeting with officers concerned to make a draft for the state rule. Some relaxations will be given to the Central Act as those demands need heavy investment,” Social Justice Department Special Secretary Biju Prabhakar told Express. He said the decision was taken to protect the interest of the children who are in various CCIs. “Out of 817 CCIs registered under the JJ Act, 790 are run by NGOs. We don’t have any facilities to house them in case CCIs down their shutters,” he said.
Government sources, meanwhile, said lack of legal experts well versed in the topic has resulted in delaying the drafting of the rule. Express had earlier reported about 280 CCIs were closed down in the state as they refused to endorse the JJ Act.