HYDERABAD: The alleged rape of a minor girl at a city orphanage recently, has brought to light the illegal mushrooming of child care institutes (CCIs) across Telangana. According to officials of the women and child welfare department (WCWD), there are over 200 such shelters up and running in the state — most of them in Rangareddy and Medchal districts. Within Hyderabad, there are at least five. Apart from flouting norms under the Juvenile Justice Act, many of them operate out of crammed spaces — some as small as a bathroom — often discreetly, with no signboard outside the CCI.
“Most of them spring up in the outskirts and not core city limits as the arrangement make its easier to escape from the officials’ watch,” said a WCWD official, raising an alarm about the safety of children living in these CCIs — a fear echoed by many activists.
“The children in these places are very vulnerable to all kinds of abuse. Since these CCIs — rapidly growing in numbers — are not on the government’s radar, nobody knows what happens inside the homes. The children could be abused or forced to beg by the staff or even trafficked,” said Mamatha Raghuveer, founder of Tharuni NGO, who works with Telangana Women Safety Wing. She added, “Most of them are running a business, using those kids to attract charity funds…Maybe just 10% of these unregistered orphanages are genuine.”
Given the large number of these shelters, WCWD officials say it is impossible to initiate action against all of them. “Whenever we identify an unregistered CCI, we crack the whip on them. But often, they go unnoticed. Also, while some owners, after our intervention, shut the orphanage down, they open another one within two years,” the official said. In 2019, 18 unregistered homes were shut in Rangareddy.
While the District Child Protection Officer (DCPO) of Rangareddy, Satish Babu, maintained that regular inspections are conducted to weed out those lacking proper facilities “like food, hygiene, utilities and audit reports”, Dr Tripurana Venkataratnam, former chairperson of Telangana State Commission for Women raised doubts over the quality of these inspections. “Though there is an inspection committee that monitors the CCIs, it exists only on paper. The quality of the inspections is very poor,” said Dr Tripurana.
Courtesy Times of India
