Odisha to dedicate a day in each quarter for children’s issues

BHUBANESWAR: The women and child development department has decided to earmark a dedicated/fixed day in each quarter and declare it as ‘A Day for Children’ to take stock of grievances related to children, review of effective implementation of child protection related laws, schemes and programmes.
Official sources said combined meetings of the existing task forces/committees at district and sub-divisional level respectively may be convened on this fixed day under the chairpersonship of respective chairpersons.
Besides grievance related to children, the officials will also work on the issues of child marriage, child trafficking, child labour, child sexual abuse and violence against children and adolescents.
It could be a dedicated working day to be planned to discuss issues related to protection of rights of children with clear accountability and follow up plan, said an official letter issued on Friday.
This special day idea will help in ensuring regularization and making these committees functional, enhance coordination among authorities and committees, bring children’s issues in priority and create a protective environment for children.
Apart from that, the special day provision will save time of responsible officers and more issues will be addressed.
There are several schemes and Acts related to children’s welfare and their meetings will be conducted on these dedicated days every quarter.
As of now, as many as 3,007 villages of the state are declared child marriage free.
District, block and panchayat level taskforces on adolescent empowerment and ending child marriage have been set up and are in place in all 30 districts across the state as an effort towards system strengthening.
Although the various task forces/committees work for a common goal, these committees are not meeting regularly as desired.
“Therefore, many issues which could have been settled at district and sub-district level are not being resolved properly.
Hence in order to establish synergy and bring harmony among the district level committees, the district may decide a fixed day in each quarter and declare it as ‘A Day for Children’,” said a letter of the department to all the district collectors.