The three day landmark meeting of SAARC Countries on protection of children ended with the Ministerial Meeting in New Delhi today. The meeting of South Asia Initiative to End Violence Against Children (SAIEVAC) was held to assess the progress made in collective effort to promote child rights and make the SAARC region safe for children. Inaugurating the Ministerial meeting today, the Union Home Minister , Shri Rajnath Singh said that the SAARC region is home to the world’s largest population of children. Children are our most precious resource and it is most critical to safeguard the innocence and security of childhood, the Home Minister explained. Highlighting the importance of SAIEVAC, Shri Rajnath Singh said that it is a coalition of States which aims at protection of the rights of children, particularly protection of children from all forms of discrimination, abuse, neglect, exploitation, torture, trafficking ie any kind of violence. The SAIEVAC meeting , he said, will provide the subsequent agenda in terms of strengthening the institutional and coordination mechanisms and to develop a regional strategy that defines clear milestones towards the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs).
The Home Minister urged the member countries to take full advantage of SAIEVAC since the platform provides us with an opportunity for cross-country exchange and sharing of knowledge and resources related to child protection through capacity building, advocacy, and research. Shri Rajnath Singh expressed India’s full commitment towards a strong partnership for the protection of children. Addressing the participants, the Union Minister of Women and Child Development , Smt Maneka Sanjay Gandhi said that the 4th Ministerial meeting is notable and in a way historic since it is the first where SAIEVAC takes stock of 5 years of work by national governments working in official partnership for the safety and security of children of the region. The WCD Minister hoped that the meeting will not only take the next step of assessing the challenges of our present time, and adopting decisions that will guide our next five years, but will also become an instrument of change.
Smt Maneka Gandhi highlighted the important new initiatives of the Indian Government as a part of affirmative action for protection of children like the Beti bachao beti Padhao Scheme, Juvenile Justice (care and protection) Act, 2015, launch of Khoya-Paya; a Citizen based ICT platform to report missing and found children, extension of Childline to 402 locations across the country, Unique initiative with railways for runaway/trafficked children, inspection of Child Care Institutions, adoption reforms, introduction of Foster care among others. Smt Maneka Gandhi also outlined the steps taken under the important ongoing schemes/initiatives and by institutions like POCSO, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, New National Policy for Children, Integrated Child Protection Scheme, Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan, efforts to check child labour, efforts to prevent child marriages among others.
The WCD Minister specially highlighted the new Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao, launched under the guidance of Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi which has now become one of the flagship programs of the Government. The program was launched to ensure survival, protection, education and empowerment of girl child and has become extremely successful, the Minister explained. She further added that it is an excellent example of how it is possible to achieve behavior change in a short period of time through concerted, collective and determined effort of various stakeholders. Today’s Ministerial Meeting of SAIEVAC was preceded by a two-day technical session and was attended by Ministers of Child/Social Affair Departments of concerned countries, Secretaries of concerned departments, senior officials and Civil Society Organizations of various SAARC Countries. The meeting saw a discussion on ways and means to achieve Sustainable Development Goals, review of progress of ten years of SAIEVAC and five-year workplan (2011-16), formulation of draft recommendations by the 6th Governing Board Meeting and Adoption of Agenda for the next five years. The SAIEVAC meeting was hosted by WCD Ministry of Government of India.