CHENNAI: Days after a 14-year-old girl, rescued from an unauthorised home, delivered a child, right activists alleged that the case highlighted the serious failure on the part of the police in following due procedures.
Pointing out that the girl’s pregnancy went unnoticed for nearly two months until she delivered the child, social activist A Narayanan said this was because the police fail to produce the rescued children before the Child Welfare Committee and subject them for medical examinations.
“Instead, the police hand over the children to their parents. This is in complete violation of the Juvenile Justice Act,” said Narayanan, fighting a legal battle against unregulated children homes in the state.
He has also sent a petition to the DGP pointing out that the police had sent the 8 out of 9 children to their respective families instead of producing them before the CWC for appropriate enquiry and rehabilitation, which is a mandatory procedure under Juvenile Justice Act, 2000 and Tamil Nadu Juvenile Justice Rules,2001.
“If all the children had been produced before the CWC on July 5 (the day the children were rescued), then detailed enquiry and medical examination arranged by the CWC/Social Welfare officers would have brought to light the advanced pregnant condition of not only the 14-year old victim of repeated sexual abuse, but also whether other children were also victims of sexual or physical abuse.
This would have helped for arranging timely relief and rehabilitation, which has been denied to the victims in the above incident,” Narayanan had said in his petition to the DGP.
Narayanan also lashed out at the police for by-passing the procedure and said it was an obvious instance of failure of Special Juvenile Police Units and Child Welfare Officers in Police Stations of Tamil Nadu.
He has requested the DGP to conduct mass sensitisation programmes for appropriate handling of situations involving juveniles in conflict with law as well as those in need of care and protection.