Mangalore: Child Welfare Committee Dissolution – Sangh Parivar Conspiracy?
Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (SP)

Mangalore, Dec 9: The order issued by the under secretary in the department of the state women and child welfare department, V Shivkumar, dismissing the chairperson of Dakshina Kannada district Child Welfare Committee (CWC) and its members, leaves several questions unanswered and a number of doubts uncleared.

Hilda Rayappan

The women and child welfare department here had sent a recommendation to the government to dismiss the local CWC chairperson, Hilda Rayappan, and members, Renny Peter D’Souza and Geo Ferry James D’Silva, as the department said, it had prima facie found that the concerned had misused their powers in certain cases. Acting on this recommendation, the committee has been dissolved. Sacking of these three has affectively closed down the judicial body that is empowered to take up child right abuse cases in the district, as the other two members have not been attending the sittings since the formation of the Committee.

The dismissal order mentions about some complaints received against the operation of the Committee conducted in September 2007 to identify child labour and rehabilitate the child labourers. It is said that the CWC had failed to reply to the charges levelled against it.

Hilda Rayappan opines that the Committee had been doing very good work, in spite of funds crunch. She has expressed her unhappiness about the dissolution of the Committee, and questioned as to what the government proposes to do with the children who were rescued and rehabilitated by the Committee.

CWC member, Renny D’Souza, pointed out that some of the cases mentioned in the order are being heard by the High Court. Moreover, a detailed reply had been provided to the department’s notices in October, 2007. On October 21, 2009, clarifications had been furnished to the department, which reached the department on November 6. The dissolution of CWC is a pre-planned move, he alleged.

Geo D’Silva has opined that the government has sacked the CWC chairperson and members for silly reasons. He has challenged the government to pinpoint a single incident where the Committee had not protected the children’s rights.

The department, which has said that the CWC members had misused their powers. But, it had given the ‘Best CWC in the State’ award to this unit in 2008. The government seems to have been irked by the Committee’s tough stand against the trafficking of children from Meghalaya, who were illegally brought to the district and sheltered in schools run by the department. The joint director of the social empowerment department, Meghalaya, had visited the district thereafter, and his report had confirmed the fact that the children of Meghalaya had been illegally kept here. This had caused embarrassment to the Sangh Parivar outfits, it is alleged.

The CWC’s taking up of a case of illegal sale of a newborn child in a hospital in Puttur had also caused discomfiture for the department officials.

Deputy director of the department, Shakuntala, said that the government may form a new Child Welfare Committee or hand over additional charge of the district to a Committee from some other district temporarily.