Children of our nation have rights.

Regarding the child rights law in India, the Constitution of India grants that the nation, as a directive principle of state policy, must attempt to assure “that children are given opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner and conditions of freedom and dignity and that childhood and youth are protected against exploitation and moral and material abandonment.” The Indian government approved the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child on November 12 in 1992. Child rights law in India bestows the rights to equality, to the protection of life, to personal freedom, and against exploitation, which is explained in Articles 14–17, 21, 23, and 24 of the Indian Constitution. Additionally, Article 15 protects women and children facing discrimination on several grounds.

Through this article on child rights law in India, let’s discuss National Policy for Children, 2013, which was adopted on April 26, 2013, by the government of India. Replacing the 1974 child policy, this new policy laid down the guiding systems that must be noted by national, state, and local authorities in their actions and initiatives concerning children. The policy states that the “safety and security of all children is fundamental to their welfare and children are to be guarded against all kinds of harm, abuse, neglect, violence, maltreatment, and exploitation in all contexts including care institutions, schools, hospitals, crèches, families, and communities.”

National Policy for Children, 2013 also mentions that the nation shall protect all children from all sorts of brutality and injustice, abuse, negligence, disgrace, differentiation, divestment, exploitation, which includes financial exploitation and physical exploitation, abandonment, parting, kidnapping, trade or trafficking for any purpose or in whatever form. It also protects children from evils like pornography, liquor and drug abuse, or any other action that takes undue advantage of them, and/or wrecks their personhood and/or affects their growth.

This child rights law in India also states that the nation shall support the child-friendly constitution, establish progressive laws, build a defensive and sensitive child protection system, including emergency outreach programs, and develop an effective implementation of disciplinary, congressional, and organizational measures against all forms of child abuse.

In this regard, the government of India has designated focal administration for child rights and its implementation to the Ministry of Women and Child Development and has also given it key responsibility for supervising the implementation of the National Policy for Children, 2013. In its efforts, it released a National Plan of Action for Children on January 24, 2017.