The Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) is, therefore proposed by the Ministry of Women and Child Development as a centrally sponsored scheme to address the issue of child protection and build a protective environment for children through Government-Civil Society Partnership.
Reasons for adopting Integrated Child Protection Scheme
Child protection is integrally linked to every other right of the child. Failure to ensure children’s right to protection adversely affects all other rights of the child.
Child protection is also closely linked to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and policy makers have failed to see this connection or chosen to overlook it.
Most existing mechanisms on child protection cater to post-harm situations. Preventive measures to reduce vulnerability of children and their families and to prevent children from falling out of the protective net are completely lacking in both the approach to child protection as well as programmatic intervention.
There are multiple vertical schemes for child protection scattered under different Ministries/Departments, for example, the Labour Ministry is responsible for child labour elimination programmes, Ministry of Women and Child Development takes care of juvenile justice, child trafficking and adoption related matters, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare looks into the implementation of PC&PNDT Act to check female feticide.
There are glaring gaps in the infrastructure, set up and outreach services for children as they exist now. These include:
Poor planning and coordination – prevention has never been part of planning for child
protection. Lack of lateral linkages with other sectors for ensuring prevention of violence, abuse or any other harm to children and protection of those outside the safety net has failed to ensure social justice.
Low coverage - numbers of children outside the safety net with no support and services is ever increasing and lack of systematic and comprehensive mapping of children in need of care and protection or of the services available for them at the district/city/state level results in low and poor coverage.
Poor Infrastructure - the minimal government structure that exists is rigid and a lot of time and energy goes in maintaining the structure itself rather than concentrating on programmatic outcomes. Moreover even the infrastructure prescribed by law is not in place, for example, JJBs and CWCs under the Juvenile Justice Act are lacking, shelter and institutional care facilities are also highly inadequate.
Inadequate Resources – child protection constitutes only 0.034 percent of the total Union Budget. Not only is allocation of resources poor in terms of geographical spread, even the utilization of resources is uneven.
Serious Service Gaps – there is a lack of services to deal with all categories of children in need of care and protection and supervision, monitoring and evaluation of programmes and services is weak. Child protection is not a priority in the States either.
Poor understanding of child rights and lack of child friendly approach affect both planning and service delivery.
Participants