Page 3 - AUG2018E

Editor’s Note

Vulnerable inmates stay under preying

eyes of vultures at shelter homes

When my colleague from Luc- exploit them by high and mighty. In all cases vulner-
know Mudit Mathur called up to able women are sexually violated with impunity. And
inform that Muzaffarpur (Bihar) when media highlights such incidents, the heads
like incident had been reported start rolling. In Bihar case, Social Welfare Minister
from Deoria in Uttar Pradesh, I was Manju Verma has submitted her resignation to Chief
shocked. This is our India in 72nd Minister, Nitish Kumar after the name of her husband
year of its Independence. In fact I had cropped up in case of sexual abuse of minor girls at
taken with a pinch of salt a recent sur- the shelter home in Muzaffarpur. While in case of
vey conducted by Thomas Reuters Founda- Bihar, the High Court monitored CBI probe has been
tion that ranked India as the world’s most dangerous ordered, in case of UP, Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath
country for women, ahead of Afghanistan, Syria and has ordered inspection of all shelter homes in the State.
Saudi Arabia. Chilling details from shelter homes in It happened in case of Apna Ghar in Rohtak where
Bihar and Deoria add dangerous dimensions to sexual its predator Jaswanti Devi was convicted and in Chan-
abuse. digarh five persons were arrested. However, it seems
In both cases, it has come to notice that hap- no lessons are learnt as incidents like these continue
less girls were being sexually abused with the happening with impunity. We cannot allow these shel-
complicity of the NGO operators who obviously ter homes for the poor and destitute to turn into horror
had considerable political clout. For example a houses of exploitation where instead of protecting the
person who owned a local newspaper home was inmates, they are considered easy prey. The Centre has
running the Muzaffarpur shelter home. The two in- initiated a measure by calling for a social audit of all the
cidents come on the heels of shocking sexual and 9,000 child shelters in the country. In the meanwhile, it’s
physical abuse of inmates inside Apna Ghar, a shelter time we all join hands to vehemently condemn such
home in Haryana. incidents and press authorities so that such gory
Earlier the incident involving the rape of a 19-year- tales don’t recur.
old mentally challenged girl who gave birth to a girl
child in government run shelter home in Chandigarh
shocked the nation when it was discovered that she
was gang-raped by caretakers and guards. The sor-
did affairs of shelter homes show that the very homes
meant to protect women are being used to sexually (charanjit ahuja)

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Volume 15, Issue no. 16, 16-31 august 2018, released on 16 august, number of pages including cover 68
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