A successful stint as Secretary in the Department of Disability Affairs in the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment landed Stuti Kacker the job of head of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights. Credited with initiating Sugamya Bharat and Divyang schemes for the differently-abled, this retired IAS officer (1978 batch), has the mandate of putting the house in order in her post-retirement appointment. The NCPCR chief has firmly resolved to redress grievances of children in conflict with law. If there is a crime, punishment must follow but these are our children we have to retrieve from a life of crime, she said in an interview. Excerpts:

Q: What are your views on the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2015?

A: Contrary to the general impression about the Juvenile Justice Act of 2015, this amended law is a boon, not a bane, for children in conflict with law (CCL). There are some very good features in the law. People are not going into it in depth. It is not merely about crime and punishment. It entails the entire process of rehabilitation of children in conflict with law as well as victims. It proposes several measures for prevention of crime involving children.

Under this Act there are two kinds of children — those in need of care and protection and those in conflict with law. They are two faces of the same coin. A runaway child in need of care and protection requires a little push to become a child in conflict with law. This Act gives us a legal framework to deal with such children.

Q: How beneficial and how different is the Juvenile Justice Act 2015 from the earlier JJ Act 2000?

A: From 2000 to 2015, things have changed, society has evolved; thought processes are different too. Many new initiatives came up. This Act has an adoption clause, whereby emphasis is on ensuring healing of wounds of these children with care, protection, rehabilitation, and removing push factors. CCL and CCP kids can be put into adoption or foster care. If required, children who refuse to return home are sent to new homes or foster parents where they are taken care of. This entire gamut of child welfare, earlier done with an objective of charity is now part of the rights of a child, which is a powerful concept. For the first time equity has been accorded to both victims and effecters of juvenile crimes. The Act takes a sympathetic look at both. It also focuses on the victim. While it ensures justice for the victim, it makes provision for reformation and rehabilitation of the effecter. The earlier Act did not bother about the victim who may also be a juvenile. Both are suffering in the sense they will live through the trauma of the criminal act.  The new Act comes to the aid of children who were once involved in crime so that they can be prevented from going back to their life of crime — petty, serious or heinous.

Q: What are the features of the Act that make it stand out?

A: This Act will hold a mirror to society as it also deals with reasons why children who are born innocent take to crime. A chapter on principles and philosophy of this Act says if a child commits a serious or heinous crime than he definitely needs help. It suggests his treatment by way of reform, rehabilitation, and prescribes methods to concentrate more on such a child to retrieve him from his life of crime. It dwells into the child&’s psyche; does not look at the child merely as a criminal. The law says that a crime-punishment focus might reform him, he may be deterred from committing the same crime again but if society does not accept him back as a non-tainted individual, his chances of getting out of the crime cycle will be minimal. That is to say that a punishment meted out to this child (in conflict with law) might fulfill its objective of creating a deterrent but the penalty won’t remove the factors which had put the adolescent or teenager onto the ratchet of a crime cycle. These are our children, we cannot throw them out of our society, nor can they be banished from our lives. They will not vanish either. They will remain somewhere in the social milieu. The JJ Act talks about healing his wounds so that he can move ahead in life as a citizen who was unfortunate to have had a sojourn with crime. Thus, transforming a CCL individual into a citizen ‘sans blemish’ is the prime objective of the JJ Act of 2015.

Q: Is it possible in reality?

A: There have been success stories. Adolescents and children as young as eight years old who at one time were known to be drug addicts, murderers and rapists have been known to have undergone reformation. Defying psychology which says these perpetrators of crime have aberrations and need to be in confinement, the Act pitches for the complete development of their minds. It also accords attention to mental health of these children who lost their childhood to cruel fate. These children need to be told what is right and what is wrong. If parents have failed in their duties, the government has to do the job, for every child is a citizen of India. To my mind, the task is not Herculean. There may be one to two per cent of such children, not so many that we cannot manage.

Q: What are the major challenges at NCPCR?

A: The problem is that some children refuse to go back to their homes. How to restore them is the main challenge. If a child refuses to be restored to his parents, then he can be put into CCI (child care institution).

Q: Why do you think children get into crime situations? Are we as a society responsible for pushing them into crime?

A: I think first, due to dysfunctional homes. In a family where the father is abusive, mother is unable to protect and provide for the child, the child gets fed up. Nobody bothers about him, therefore he runs away from home.  For his basic needs like clothes and food, he needs money. If he finds no work, he is bound to get into petty crime like stealing food, bread or fruit from vendors for survival. This starts him on a crime cycle. He graduates to committing bigger crimes. If he falls ill, his expenses rise. He may move on to drugs. The more his needs, the more serious his crimes. Once stigmatised, he gets spotted by the crime mafia, which starts using him for bigger crimes.   

Mainly, child sexual abuse is behind every CCL case. Sexual crime against boys — teenage or adolescent — does not get highlighted. Boys do not cry. They do not talk. The anger against society and people keeps building up. It hardens them and they start committing similar crimes. They lament that when they were victims nobody spoke, nobody came out to help… so they question why they are being targeted.

Many a time families push their children into petty crimes, stealing, etc., for money. Poverty plays a crucial factor in pushing these children into crime.

Q: What are the priorities of NCPCR?

A: The first mandate is grievance redressal. Those children who feel helpless or are not heard anywhere can come to us. We will help resolve their issues. We make a customised rehabilitation plan for such children and implement it through an observation home where once a child enters, the process of his transformation, or retrieval, starts. Counselors meet these children, convince them they can relive their ‘lost’ childhood and experience its happiness. Mental health issues of these minors are also taken care of. We provide a safety net to such children. Apart from care and sympathy, we give them some skill to improve their monetary status for economic factors were the main reason the child left home.

Q: But how can aggrieved children approach you?

A: To reach us, the Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi has launched POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) e-button for lodging a complaint in e-box, an online complaint box to be available in every school. Anybody, even a child can press it. Thereafter we will take care of everything.

Q: What do you intend to do during your tenure?

A:  I am sowing seeds so that even after I am gone, work will not stop. I am opening many windows say, on child trafficking, child nutrition, child care management, right to education and their mental health. We are trying to create a data base for which NCPCR has done mapping of crimes against children.