A 16-year-old girl from a colony in south Kolkata fled home allegedly because she was unable to bear the rebuke from her parents for her congenital heart ailment.
Police have rescued her from a place in West Midnapore, around 150km from her home. She took refuge in the house of a stranger whom she befriended on social media.
The girl is said to have told the police that her parents would often “curse” her for all the expenses they had to incur for her medical condition.
Apparently unable to take anymore, she left home on February 13.
Hours after her parents failed to locate her, they reported the matter to New Alipore police station.
The police said the father worked in a small grocery.
After analysing the call records of the girl’s phone number, the police found that she was in touch with a young man in Kotwali in West Midnapore. A police team reached the location and rescued the girl early on February 14.
The girl’s plight serves as a pointer to the grim reality that many children may be under threat at their own homes. There are circumstances under which a child’s home can be declared “non-restorable” to take back the child.
Members of the state’s Child Welfare Committee (CWC) said a child was not sent back to his or her home if he or she was declared as a “Child in Need of Care and Protection”.
According to the Juvenile Justice Act, a child is declared as a Child in Need of Care and Protection if the child is:
- Without any home or settled place of abode and without any ostensible means of subsistence
- Found working in contravention of labour laws or begging or living on the street
- Residing with a person who has injured, exploited, abused or threatened to do so or killed, abused, neglected or exploited some other child
- Mentally ill or physically challenged having no one to support him/her
- Having parent or guardian unfit or incapacitated
- Orphan or abandoned child
- Missing or runaway child or one whose parents cannot be found after making reasonable inquiry
- A child who is likely to be abused, tortured or exploited for sexual abuse or illegal acts
- Found vulnerable or likely to be inducted into drug abuse or trafficking
- Likely to be abused for unconscionable gains
- Victim of armed conflict, civil unrest or natural calamity
- At imminent risk of marriage before attainable age of marriage
In Bengal, many minors have been found to have been subjected to sexual abuse at his or her home by someone known to the child. There were cases where minors were encouraged by their family members to leave home to earn money, resulting in child labour or trafficking.
A CWC official said merely “scolding” a child did not mean the parents were unfit to take care of the child.
“The conditions (of a child returning to their own home) vary from one case to another. We check if the child wants to return home and if the child is a Child in Need of Care and Protection. Then it is decided in the best interests of the child if the child should return home,” said the official.
As for the minor who was rescued from Kotwali, the CWC has initiated a social investigation to find out whether the girl’s home is fit for her to return.
“Every child should enjoy the basic rights to shelter, education, health and participation.... The parents or guardians should ensure these rights to their children. Even if a child flees home, the guardians or parents are considered to be the best well-wishers of the child and are given the child’s custody after rescue unless he/she is a Child in Need of Care and Protection,” said Mahua Sur Ray of the CWC.
After declaring a Child in Need of Care and Protection, a child can go back home only after the house is declared “restorable”.