The role of parents in child protection

Children can develop confidence with the help of parents. They can counter the threat by learning how to respond to it.

फाल्गुन २, २०८१

सुशीला शर्मा

The role of parents in child protection

Article 39 of the Constitution of Nepal recognizes the rights of children as fundamental rights and provides for the highest welfare of children. It is also the right of all children to be protected from challenges, violence, exploitation, abuse and neglect. Did everyone get to live as a child from birth to 18 or spend childhood?

Around 1990, Nepal pledged to ensure children's rights by signing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. How much has Nepal succeeded in guaranteeing children's rights? This has been the subject of study. Child protection also includes child rights.

Child protection covers all forms of harm that can happen to children. Children are being exploited through physical, emotional and sexual abuse, hela, forced abduction and child marriage, child labour, discrimination, religious abuse and harmful traditional practices.

On the one hand, parents can be seen carrying their children's bags to school with utmost safety towards the city/market, feeding them at home, fulfilling every need, while on the other hand, she found children wandering around starving, cold and hot. 

On the one hand, parents are very careful and protective of their children and are not letting them break even when it is time for them to do and learn, while on the other hand, they are sending their daughters to the thick forest as a herder of goats during the time of reading, writing and thinking. The forest itself is an unsafe place . Fear of wild animals, insects, grasshoppers, poisonous snakes became inevitable. On top of that, abuse/violence can also happen from people with malicious intentions.

religious fairs where there are many games such as katmar, running and circus. Even in such places, children are constantly gathering. Some people get lost in the crowd, get crushed, and may even get injured. But in the name of religious faith, the parents themselves keep those children present. The circus itself is a risky sport in which children are used. Leaving aside the issue of protection, the question arises as to what the children are learning from their parents about various social values. 

Child labor is talked about. It is believed that children under the age of 14 are not allowed to do any kind of child labor. In many hotels, children as young as 14 years of age can be seen doing everything from washing dishes to cleaning and carrying water jars. Apart from the fact that some families keep their children in their homes and send them to school to make them work, other child laborers do not know that the work they are doing is child labor.

Some districts and municipalities have declared their areas child-friendly by forming children's clubs and awareness programs to work for the benefit of children. How many such announcements have been exemplary and fruitful for other areas? Children's clubs formed in many schools have also become inactive and closed. Somewhere, even if an NGO has brought about renaissance, the children's clubs formed in schools and wards and municipalities tend to become inactive after the term of the NGO expires.  According to

time, parents should also let their children free. But even if children are supposed to be children until the age of 18, because they cannot make up their own minds, some restrictions must be put in place for freedom and their best interests. Children should be taught about danger. They should be told not to do dangerous work. Like

: You should be taught not to work in mines, dig wells, work in brick kilns, be soldiers, or participate in conflicts, watch or play pornographic videos on the Internet. All these things are against the interest of children. It should also be taught that one should not do heavy lifting, go alone in the forest to graze cattle or go for grass/firewood etc. 

There are many other things that parents need to understand about children's rights. One of which is facilitating children to be disciplined. Parents should be aware themselves and others should also be aware. Children should be taught about their rights. Parents themselves should first become aware of child abuse and educate their children as well. If some signs of abuse are seen in children, they should be checked and reported to the relevant authorities immediately.

Such suggestions may seem suitable only to the literate and conscious parent. But it is the responsibility of the school teachers, state agencies, activists to make the parents who are unaware and unconscious in the life of poverty aware. Children are immature and therefore cannot reach correct decisions. Because of this, child marriages have not been stopped.

A girl gives birth to a baby and because of the same reproductive process, the time is wasted to make a fertile career of the girl child. This process is still ongoing in our society. The tradition of fearing to educate the daughter at the expense of her daughter and many kinds of persecution on the grounds of dowry is also still there. 

Children themselves can develop self-confidence with the help of parents. They can counter the threat by learning how to respond to it. They can tell their problems to a trusted person. They can also learn how to approach strangers and how to stay away from them.

Children can also protect themselves by knowing how to take care of their bodies. They can also help themselves in their own safety by not bothering them or what they don't like. But the important responsibility for the safety of children lies with the family, parents and the state. If children can grow up safe and healthy and with confidence, the future generation will certainly contribute to the positive development of society. 

सुशीला शर्मा शर्मा कान्तिपुरमा लैंगिक तथा समसामयिक विषयमा कलम चलाउँछिन् ।

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