India working to stop women, child trafficking: Maneka

Shillong- India is in the process of finding a solution to thwart trafficking of women and children from Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan, union Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi said here on Monday.

Gandhi, who inaugurated the “Regional Conference of North Eastern States on Child Adoption” here, also directed all the northeastern states to appoint a special woman police official in each village to prevent trafficking of women and children.

“We have discussed this issue (trafficking of women and children) in the cabinet. We had called a meeting with these countries last month in which all NGOs working on this and others in Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh came,” she said.

“We will have another meeting next week in India. We are telling each other what we can do. This month, we are going to see that specific solutions come into being,” she said.

On trafficking of women and children from the northeastern states, Gandhi said: “There is an enormous amount of trafficking of children going on from the northeast. We find them in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and many going to Malaysia and Thailand. It is not fair.”

She appealed to the northeastern states to emulate the ‘Shaurya Dal’ model in place in Madhya Pradesh by appointing a ‘special woman police volunteer’ in every village by the end of the year, the selection and training of which will be done by the superintendent of police.

“The job of special women police is to be vigilant in the village and see that children do not go missing, women are not beaten by husbands, girls are sent to school,” she said.

In her inaugural address, the minister spoke on child adoption and the 2015 guidelines on adoption of children.

She said the revised guidelines coupled with a new IT-enabled adoption system named CARINGS will simplify the adoption process and provide transparency, taking into account the fact that all child care institutions in the country are brought into an integrated system.

On the vulnerability of children deprived of the love and care of parents, she stressed the importance of foster care homes and said her ministry would financially support foster parents who provide a family-like care facility for children in need of such care and protection.

Lamenting that home studies were being delayed, she said such delays lead to the adoption process getting hampered.

Gandhi said that with the new guidelines, home studies will have to be completed in two months.

Image- New Delhi: Union Minister for Women and Child Development, Maneka Gandhi addresses at the inauguration of the Himveer Wives Welfare Association Exhibition, in New Delhi on Nov. 6, 2015. (Photo: IANS/PIB)