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Child Welfare Committee helps 400 forgotten Children in Jammu in past 3 years

Child Welfare Committee is an autonomous body to deal with children in need of care and protection. Section 27 of Chapter V of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2015 talks about Child Welfare Committees. The Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 is the principle law in the country for children alleged and found to be in conflict with law and children in need of care and protection. The Act provides for child friendly approaches in adjudication and disposal of matters keeping best interest of children as paramount.

Ideally, every district should have one Child Welfare Committee. The committee comprises one Chairperson and four members are per the government rules and at least one of them should be a woman whereas others should be experts on matters concerning children. The duration of this appointment should not exceed the time period of three years. The Child Welfare Committee has full authority to dispose of cases for the care, treatment, development, rehabilitation and protection of the children. The District Magistrate is the grievances redressal authority for Child Welfare Committee and also reviews CWC quarterly.

Child Welfare Committee was established in Jammu in February 2018. The Committee has one Chairperson along with three other members. The Committee has around 29 Child Care Institutions under their watch, out of which 9 are Government whereas 20 other shelter homes are handled by different NGOs. Around 900 children are provided support by Child Welfare Committee currently. Two new open shelter homes were recently opened by the Government for boys and girls.

Child protection primarily means protecting children from any real or perceived danger that can pose a threat to their childhood/life. It works towards reducing the vulnerability in the life of a child ensuring that their social and emotional needs are met and they do not escape from the social safety net. It focuses on providing necessary care, protection and moral support to abandoned kids for bringing them back into the society.

In a period of three years, CWC Jammu has handled almost 400 such cases which comprised abandoned children, kids involved in begging etc. Several children were safely repatriated into their families after languishing in shelter homes for years due to commendable work done by CWC.