• ◘ A 16-year-old girl in Purulia foiled her parents’ plans to get her married this June by calling a child helpline number.
• ◘ A 16-year-old boy boarded a train at a station in Haryana for Delhi and finally made it back to Calcutta to escape torture in a household where he went to work.
• ◘ A 19-year-old boy scored 80 per cent in the higher secondary exams and is studying botany honours at a college in Murshidabad. The only difference between him and many others is that he writes with his right leg. He cannot use his hands because of locomotor disability.

Children were given bravery awards on Thursday at the annual programme of the state commission for protection of child rights to celebrate International Child Rights Day on November 20.

As many as 31 children were awarded for upholding child rights, either for themselves or others.

The awardees included children who have saved a friend or a neighbour from getting trafficked, stopped an underage marriage or triumphed a physical challenge not just to be successful but to compete with those without disabilities as equals.

November 20 is a reminder of the commitment to adopt the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

“It is a time to assess how much we have achieved and how much is to be done. But only the commission, police or administration cannot ensure the safety of each child. It is our appeal to every person living in society to ensure the safety of not just their children but the children in their neighbourhood as well. If all children in your city are not safe, your child will not be safe either,” said Tulika Das, chairperson, West Bengal Commission for the Protection of Child Rights.

On stage, taking the awards were children who fought unequal battles but persisted.

A Class VII student called her teacher to inform her that her parents had finalised her wedding to a man who was 26. “I could not tell anyone at home. My teacher informed police. My parents thought the neighbours had informed the police, not knowing
that I had planned it all,” the 14-year-old told The Telegraph before accepting the Birangana award.

The theme of this year’s International Child Rights Day was “listen to the future”.

Das urged the audience at Rabindra Sadan to listen to children, who are the future, and pledge to stand by them and for their rights.

This includes the rights of children with disabilities, too.

Mohammad Alam Rahman, 19, came from Murshidabad to take his award. “I started using my leg to write when I was in Class VI. I used to be a good student but I needed a writer. A teacher asked me, ‘Why don’t you try?’. In Madhyamik, I used a writer because my writing was not legible. But in higher secondary, I wrote my papers,” said the BSc student.

Apart from the awards ceremony, there were other visible signs of inclusion during the three-hour programme.

What was being said on stage was communicated to the audience through a sign-language interpreter.

The backdrop, which was a poster celebrating International Child Rights Day, had a girl in a wheelchair among other children. The poster was used on the invitation card for the programme as well.

Over the years, the commission has tried to make inclusion a reality in various ways — from having a schoolgirl with disabilities as the chairperson of the commission for a day to including Braille pages in its children’s magazines.

“We are seeing changes around us in public places. Ramps are being built.... The slope’s gradient is not always right but there is an effort to make changes,” Das told The Telegraph.

“The day we include all kinds of children, automatically it will include those with disabilities, too. If the first child in class can do 10 kinds of sums in math, the teacher should ensure that the last child can do at least five. That is the teacher’s responsibility and that is inclusion,” she said.