To create awareness about the sorry state of juvenile rehabilitation centres and special homes for juvenile delinquents, a consultation on “Aftercare and Rehabilitation of children in conflict with the law” was organised at India International Centre recently by Butterflies, an organisation working with the most vulnerable groups of children.
The consultation witnessed participation of experts like Bharti Sharma, former Chairperson, Child Welfare Committee and Rita Panicker Director of Butterflies. The main highlight of the event was testimonies of the children who gave a first-hand-experience of the environment prevailing inside the jhuggi jhopri clusters. One of them was allegedly falsely accused of stealing diamonds by the police and was sent to the Observation Home for Boys (OHB) where he stayed for two months before meeting the members of Butterflies.
After the authorities could not prove him guilty, he was released and started training at the Butterflies School of Culinary and Catering. The other child, a victim for substance abuse was locked at the Tihar Central jail for no crime done by him. During a medical check up in the jail, he realised he was HIV positive. He was then sent to OHB from where he was again sent back to his family, who refused to accept him knowing about his medical condition. He was found by one of the child rights activist of Butterflies in a pitiable condition at Delhi’s Nizamuddin Station.
Butterflies is against the Juvenile Justice Bill proposed by the Ministry of Women and Child Development that seeks to try 16-18 year olds as adults. Explaining the reason for opposing the proposed Bill, Rita Panicker says, “If juvenile offenders are treated as hardened criminals and put in jails to be languished for the rest of their lives there will be no scope of any reform. We need individual child care programmes and competent educators and councillors in special homes or juvenile rehabilitation shelters if we really want them to improve. And along with that we also need aftercare centre which can guide the children on what to do after release from rehabilitation centres so that they don’t go back into darkness.”
The consultation concluded by a presentation by all participants, that suggested ways to reform the current scenario of OHB and Juvenile rehabilitation centres along with suggestions to improve the system to be able to take better care of juvenile delinquents.
