By TCN News:
A National Convention ‘Towards Zero Discrimination in School Education’ was jointly organized by Swadhikar-National Dalit Movement for Justice (NDMJ-NCDHR), Centre for Social Equity and Inclusion (CSEI) and Children Movement for Climate Justice (CMCJ) in New Delhi on 28th September, 2018 at Constitution Club of India.
Participants from various organizations condemned the discriminative practices in schools that have been reported such as:
Dalit child beaten up for drinking water
Dalit child made to sit separately,
13 year old Dalit boy thrashed for offering chocolate to dominant caste minor girl,
12 year old Dalit girl beaten up as her shadow fell on the water of a dominant caste person
The academicians, researchers, students, parents and teachers present at the convention also condemned the rising incidents of sexual assault and pregnancies in pre-metric hostels of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Kasturba Gandhi KanyaVidhyalayas in Odisha and Maharashtra.
In order to counter the prevalent caste system and practices; a draft bill “Prevention of All Forms of Discrimination and Violence against Children in Educational Institution, Bill – 2018” has been prepared. And was released during the convention and presented to the state dignitaries Hon’ble Chairperson, Shri N and Kumar Sai, National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, and Hon’ble Member Delhi Minorities Commission Sr. Anastasia Sneha Gill.
The bill was based on the collective experiences of children; particularly, from the most affected groups, Scheduled Castes, Tribes, DNTNT, Girl Child, Differently abled children and children with different gender identities and ethnic-religious minority groups.
The NCST chairperson ensured to push for the Bill and call for a joint meeting with the secretaries on education to take forward the Bill as legislation. He also stressed the need for a building a society on the values of social justice and equality.
Child participants from children’s groups such as Dalit Yuva Shakti Sangathan- UP, Bihar Ambedkar children group, Children Movement for Climate Justice – AP and Karnataka, Children Gourp from Rajasthan, CMCJ – Tamil Nadu, Ideal Youth Academy – New Delhi, Neelam Foundation- Tamil Nadu, and Nine is Mine – Delhi presented gender and caste based forms of discrimination and violence experienced by them in schools and society at large through innovative skits, songs and debates.
Through these enactments the children presented specific sections of the Bill on forms for discrimination and violence in schools as well as preventive mechanism as mentioned in the bill.
The participants who were civil society members, groups headed by Dalits, adivasis, women leaders, students and parents all came up with some of the demands to table the bill:
Demands
- Ministry of Human Resource Development to Enact the Bill on Prevention of all forms of Discrimination and Violence in Educational Institutions, Bill – 2018and to disseminate information to the state education departments, officers, children, teachers and parents on the Bill
2. Monitoring and Prevention mechanisms in place to counter identity (caste, gender, ethnic and religion) based discriminatory practices in schools and hostels
3. Fast track courts to deal with cases of discrimination against children
4. MHRD and MWCD to set up high level monitoring committees along with the concerned Commissions to investigate and monitor the shelter homes to take immediate action in cases of violation of child rights and abuse
5. Implementation of SC judgment on fast tracking pending cases of violence against children
6. Central government to assess and allocate required budget for children- for survival, development, protection and participation, especially among children belonging to Dalits, Tribals, Minority and Differently abled groups