Child Rights panel remains headless for nine months

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru:

Karnataka State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (KSCPCR) has been operating without a full-time chairperson for more than nine months. As a result, the Commission is now hearing more than 1,200 cases, which has caused a backlog.

With more than 50 applications and suggestions for the positions of chairman and commission members, the competition for the top position in the commission is intensified.

Anthony Sebastian’s threeyear term as chair expired on December 4 of last year, at which point Jayashree, one of the six commission members, was named acting chairperson. Along with the chair person, the remaining members’ terms of office also ended a month and a half ago, making the Commission, ineffective.

Applicants for the position of new chairman were given a month to submit their applications, said the department of women and child development. The application period began in February of 2022. Similar to that, for other positions, applications were invited in July 2022.

According to previous KSCPCR chairperson, Kripa Alva, the government’s delay in selecting a full-time chairperson and members is a breach of children’s rights. “It is regrettable that the state has no one in place to defend children’s rights.

Because children do not constitute a voting bank, the government does not take it seriously,” she said. Alva claims that the KSCPCR used to get at least 15 cases each day.

Given the rise in child marriages and child labour instances under Covid, she asserted that it would have multiplied tenfold by this point. The KSCPCR received 480 complaints in 2021–2022, in which 18 of them included the Protection of Children Against Sexual Offenses (Pocso) Act.