HELPLESS CHILD, DISABLED CHILD HELPLINE; 25/05/11

Monnat, a 12-year-old child, along with two other minor boys worked as bonded laborers in a slaughter house at Gazi Pur under contractors Siddiqui Ali and Maneer. Ali and Maneer used to beat them brutally, give electric shocks especially to Monnat and keep him locked in a room.

These boys escaped from the clutches of the contractors on 25th May, 2011 and approached people in New Seema Puri, who in turn approached us at Pardarshita office. We promptly dialed Childline helpline number 1098 and after some time, received a call back from 011-22577917. The person on the other side enquired about the runaway children, asking us to reach his office at Tahirpur, Delhi, immediately.

We informed him that one of the boys was very serious as he couldn’t even move, so travelling to Tahirpur was not possible. We were then advised to call the police as they would ‘automatically hand over the boys’ to them. When we asked the name of the person who called us, he refused to identify himself.

As suggested, we dialed 100 number and within half an hour, a PCR van was at our office doorstep. After some time, two constables and one sub-inspector from Seema Puri Police station arrived and, without any logical correlation, gave us an hour-long lecture regarding law, before leaving us a little surprised because that’s not what was expected out of them when everyone was desperately trying to help the children. Anyway, we re-dialed 100 number as Monnat’s condition was continuously deteriorating.

As we also knew Mr. Varun, the coordinator of Childline helpline, we called him on his personal mobile phone and narrated the matter. He promised to send some representatives on the spot asap. After some time, two people from Childline did come, but till then, the police had already taken the injured boys to a hospital in their PCR van.

Monnat belongs to village Guttipada, district Dhupuri, Assam. Out of total four escaped children, the oldest, a 16-year-old, informed us that there are more than ten minor boys also working as bonded laborers with the same contractors.

At the end of the day, we would like to thank Mr Varun because he sent someone from Childline helpline. But we are left thinking about the common man, who does not know him personally and trusts the big, attractive hoardings that claim from rooftops that Childline helpline works for the welfare of children, 24x7, because many times (at least ten times), there has been no appropriate response from them.

Therefore we humbly submit to the helpline in question that reputation does not get built only by distributing promising pamphlets or displaying big hoardings by the road side. What is actually needed is diligent functioning on ground, that too, consistently.

Ritu, Rajiv

Pardarshita

Response by Childline; 26/05/11

Dear Mr. Rajiv
We appreciate your concern towards children and case refferals to CHILDLINE 1098. I would not like to comment on the sequence of event at this point of time but would get back to you at the earliest. It definitely looks like there has been some miscommunication/ issues in understanding. I was not able to have a detailed communication with the team members as they were involved in the intervention.

The child is with CHILDLINE and even now while i am writing this mail the team is in the hospital attending to the health needs of the child. It would then take forward the process of filing of the First Information Report and also reporting the caseto the child welfare committee.

Just to share CHILDLINE in Delhi directly intervenes in more than 250 cases in a month . It would be irresponsible on your part to write judgemental statements about the service without knowing the actual functioning and efforts made by teams in case intervention. As an organization we have inbuilt processes to identify issues and handle complaints In the last mail written by Ms Ritu from your organization on the BAA network, I had clearly requested her to report if there js a problem. We at CHILDLINE India Foundation have never received any formal complaint from your end though you claim that the service has not been responsive atleast 10 times. I feel if there is an issue of dysfunctionality atleast you report to appropriate personnel rather than opinion building on a group email.

We do not boast of our achievements and niether do we publicize them. All stakeholders in contact do understand the same.

We are taking cognizance of your email and would definitely get back to you about the case.

Thanks
Komal
CHILDLINE India Foundation.
Mobile - 9899998023

Response by Pardarshita; 26/05/11

Dear Komal,

Greetings!
It is not a statement we made against your helpline in particular. Neither are we competing in this field with you nor we work on this particular issue specifically. But as a common person, whenever we come across such problems, we are unable to resist from helping children in need. With that intention we call your helpline number, with a hope that the children will get support but the attitude of the helpline assistant always disappoints us.

A few months back, we happened to rescue a child from Karkardooma court, called 100 number and also the helpline but no FIR was recorded despite our written statement and photographs to DCP, East. We don't even know what happened to that rescued child subsequently.

We hope and expect that an ordinary person should be able to get full support from a helpline number, without having to call anyone personally, Mr. Varun in this case.

Regards,

Rajiv