Child Protection

Jan Seva Samiti envisions that all children live in a protective and enabling environment, free from abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence. Child protection is intrinsically woven into all our programs as we believe abuse of any sort threatens a child’s health, learning opportunities and other development areas. Apart from an integrated component, our Child Protection Program is implemented as an absolute intervention throughout our program implementation regions to protect children from the odds. The program brings sustainable institutionalized solutions by adopting a multi-pronged approach to end violence against children.

Support families to promote their children’s well-being within safe environments

Educate communities about children’s need for protection

Empower children to understand and embrace their rights to protection

Collaborate with like-minded stakeholders to establish robust child protection systems

Devising Child Protection Mechanism

Village Child Protection Committees

Village Child Protection Committees engage with and build capacities of communities on child protection, support them in identifying, mitigating and addressing child protection risks and issues with the support of community-based organizations such as child groups, parent groups and Gram Panchayat.

In 2019-20, 328 Village Child Protection Committees, 202 child groups and 137 parent groups were formed, while 27 Panchayat-level and 8 block-level Child Protection Committees were formed across Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Bihar, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

Strengthening ‘People’s Leadership on Child Protection’ focuses on educating children, parents and other community stakeholders on child protection to build community ownership. Under this intervention, we organize stakeholder meetings, which include parents, children, youth, child protection committee members and village and community leaders to discuss issues such as child protection laws, referral pathways, child protection risks, protective factors, etc.

Reinforce ‘Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy Compliance’ ensures that partners understand the issue, need and mechanism of child protection. Thus, under this intervention, we conduct compliance training for implementation partners, emphasizing the need to adhere to safeguarding protocols and internal reporting mechanisms to ensure that all incidents of child abuse are reported. In 2019-20, we conducted training sessions for 29 implementing partners.

Networking and Advocacy

Supporting National Civil Society Initiatives

At the macro level, Jan Seva Samiti actively contributes to national civil society initiatives particularly the ‘Joining Forces for Children – India, Alliance’ which is committed to advocating for the rights of children and increased accountability to end violence against children in India.

We promote state CSO Networks in priority states to collectively advocate for redressal of current and emerging child protection issues on the ground and support effective coordination/convergence at all levels for improved referral and response services. These networks comprise local partners and are led by respective lead partners in a state, who regularly interact with Panchayati Raj Institutions, block- and district-level authorities to address core community child protection issues. 

Delhi Urban Child Development Project works in 8 slums of South and South East districts of Delhi. In 2020, 4 Child Clubs, comprising of 80 children and 7 Mothers Groups, comprising of 58 mothers were formed, along with one Child Resource Center for 80 children.

DISHA promotes sustainable community-based strategies to prevent child labor in Firozabad, Uttar Pradesh. DISHA brings children out of labor by providing health, education and livelihood support within communities. Four model centers have been established to provide integrated child development services to the children living in slums. Also, a sustainable livelihood center called ‘DAKSH’ provides vocational training and coaching on personality development, spoken English and entrepreneurship to youth. Under DISHA, selected children of Firozabad slums were trained as child reporters to help identify child protection issues in their communities and write stories and send letters to concerned authorities such as the Police officials, Bal Mitra Thanas, local leaders, SMCs, PRIs, etc., to encourage responsiveness and action by the authorities.

Jan Seva Samiti’s Child Protection Program contributes to achieving the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16.2, which aims to ‘End abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children’.