Kids in all care homes of Kerala to be transferred to Thrissur model home by August-end
PALAKKAD: The women and child welfare department has asked the chairpersons of the child welfare committees and district women and child development officers to transfer all children lodged in district-level children's homes to the Thrissur model home.
A selection committee was formed in June comprising officials from the department, child welfare committees and care home managers to select the children below 18 years who should be transferred to the Thrissur model home.
A directive issued on August 12 by the department's Nirbhaya cell states that the children shall be transferred by the end of August. The actual dates for transferring children from various districts will be informed through the respective child protection officers, the directive stated.
Several child rights activists have expressed their reservations on the directive. They say the children, most of whom who are survivors in sexual abuse cases registered under the POCSO Act, should be given the freedom to live in the district they are born and brought up.
Since these children will have to travel to attend court hearings in their respective districts, they may not be able to do so on the scheduled dates.
Though the guidelines state that the information regarding the children transferred to the Thrissur home should be passed on to the government prosecutors with the POCSO courts and the care home managers by officials of the respective districts. However, in a state where the conviction rate in POCSO cases is a mere four per cent, will the guidelines be followed is a moot question.
The conviction rate in POCSO cases in Kerala was revealed in the reply to a question raised by Dean Kuriakose in parliament. It is abysmally low when compared to the national average of 12 per cent.
As noticed in the Walayar case in which two minor siblings were sexually assaulted and found hanging, there has always been interventions from the accused. Even the submission of chargesheets in such cases is very low which means that chances of quashing the FIRs is high, said a source.