Cognizance of the plight of Indian child beggars and the need for an institutional rehabilitative framework

Summary

“States Parties shall protect the child against all other forms of exploitation prejudicial to any aspects of the child’s welfare”- Article 36: United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN CRC). The Indian government being a signatory to the UN CRC is bound to protect the rights of child beggars. Drawing on detailed field study done by Deshpande fellows in Hubli-Dharwad, we propose a much active and serious role by the government of India in rehabilitating child beggars. Adequate cognizance must be made to the deplorable situation of child beggars and institutional frameworks must be designed urgently to save the child beggars, currently caught in a vicious cycle of unending indignity, abuse and marginalization.

Expanding on our hypothesis we put forward reasons for inadequate humanitarian work done for child beggars. We discuss reasons for the failure of conventional methods in addressing the problem and substantiate, that the only workable solution is an institutional framework .Based on our field study we conclude that due attention to the child beggar problem is warranted on many counts and the government should pilot child beggar rehabilitation in one of the beggar homes and then aim to make a policy for their inclusive development.

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