Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (KD/NR) 

Mangalore, Aug 1: Special Economic Zone (SEZ) of the city should first address the problems faced by children of the displaced families on the rehabilitation and resettlement package, stated Reni D’Souza, Convener Value Oriented Education (Valored) here, on Tuesday July 31.

The meeting of NGOs was convened to discuss the children-related issues in the district ‘D’  It has decided to appeal to the deputy commissioner M Maheswar Rao in this connection, failing which it was decided to organise peaceful protest by children at the taluk and district level. 

Briefly the Makkala Masotsava Samithi recommendations include the following points: Organising awareness campaign on Juvenile Justice Act 2000 for the protection of child rights; installing Special Juvenile Units in all police stations; steps for effective functioning of children committees at village levels; rehabilitation of the street children and ban on child trafficking; organizing awareness campaign against the child labour in the district and strict legal action against those employing labourers, and last but not the least extending the service of Child Help Line for the entire district.

Speaking at the meeting the convener Reni D’Souza informed that land acquisition may force children to drop out of the schools. Moreover, the package sadly does not contain provisions for protecting children’s rights. Hence she made an ardent plea for inclusion of certain provisions in the rehabilitation package, to address the said issues.

D’Souza also expressed her discontentment over the police failure in setting up the special Juvenile Units (SJU) at police stations. Geo D’Silva, Child Welfare Committee (CWC) member felt that while neighbouring Udupi district had set-up SJU’s, DK police had not done so and were apathetic. Even repeated requests to the then SP Dayananda did not yield any results, she added.