South Central Railway rescuing 15 children per hour, says Vinod Kumar

Secunderabad: Acting towards child protection, the South Central Railway (SCR) is rescuing about 10 to 15 escaped children per hour, said Vinod Kumar Yadav, General Manager, SCR, at the workshop organised in association with National Commission of Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) o¬n Wednesday at Rail Nilayam Auditorium. The workshop held on ‘Capacity Building for Creating Awareness on Child Protection’. 

He emphasised upon the need to be empathetic to the issues of children. Vinod stressed upon spreading awareness on child protection issues among station masters, ticket checking staff, railway protection force, government railway police, porters, vendors, and other railway stakeholders. He also stated that every individual should take moral responsibility to save the deprived children, in this direction railway is taking several measures and about 10 to 15 escaped children are being rescued from all over the railway net work per hour. 

Further he appealed to all individuals that, any child seen in railway premises should be rescued immediately and handed over to the child help desk, NGO’s or any rehabilitation centre treating them as his own family member. He also informed that, railways recently made the special provision for incurring the expenditure for providing medical assistance and food etc for rescued children.  He acknowledged the training workshops being conducted by NCPCR and partner organizations like RCI and ‘Save the Children’.

Vikas Gora, General Manager, ‘Save the Children’, South India, said in his opening remarks gave background of the workshop and also shared SOP for care and Protection of children in street situations developed by ‘Save the Children’ for NCPCR. Shaista K Shah, Senior Technical Expert, NCPCR,emphasised upon the need to protect the children who run away from abusive situations of home or are lost, being trafficked and reach railway stations. 

She further shared the role of NCPCR in developing the SOP and Guide book for railways for making child friendly environment for children in contact with railways. She also added that the guidebook for creating a child friendly and protective environment for children in contact with railways will fill the gap in the whole ambit of child protection at railway stations. Others who contributed to this workshop include Hymavathy, Venkataswamy and Sanjay Tiwari, Railway Children India.