It's important to remember that children who are facing a frightening situation have three fundamental concerns: Am I safe? Are you, the people who care for me, safe? How will this affect my daily life?
**********************************************
Charter on the Rights of the Child
CRY- Child Rights and You
Over three decades of experience have shown CRY that providing relief is a short-term exercise and that sustainable change can be brought about only by addressing the structural and systemic root causes of poverty and social exclusion. CRY - Child Rights and You seeks your support to raise public awareness on the state of children in India and to demand the following non-negotiables from the government:
Child Rights Charter
- Ensure a universal definition of "child" to include all persons under the age of 18.
- Increase government expenditure on children. Specifically increase expenditure on education to 10% and health to 5% of GDP.
- All children age 6-18 years, without discrimination, should be in formal, full-time schools that provide quality education. All children below 6 years should be in anganwadis. The government should ensure that all children complete schooling.
- Complete prohibition on all forms of child labour across sectors including agriculture.
- Revision of the National Policy for Children (1974) to make it more comprehensive and in line with the Constitution and the United Nations Convention of Child Rights.
- Redraft the Free and Compulsory Education Bill to remove sanctions on parents. Concerned governments to face penalty for failure to provide free, compulsory education to all.
- Formulate and implement a comprehensive rights-based policy on food security for all with extensive legal safeguards, in order that no child goes to bed hungry and no child is born underweight and stay undernourished.
- Coverage of the Public Distribution System is expanded to include all poor and socially excluded families.
- Immediate provision of nutritious mid-day meals in all primary schools and extension of this scheme to include out-of-school children. Make available Integrated Child Development Services to all children under the age of six years, as per the Supreme Court order of November 2001.
