‘Don’t house minor girls in homes meant for adults’

TRICHY: The district child protection committee (DCPU) has directed all homes for people above 18 years not to house minor girls after the minor daughter of a mentally challenged woman was sexually assaulted by the administrator of a home for abandoned mentally challenged people recently.
The resolution was passed in the district child protection committee meeting chaired by Trichy district collector M Pradeepkumar on Thursday.
The committee resolved to instruct all the homes meant for people above 18 years of age not to keep the minor girls even though they are the children of the inmates.
“In some cases, the children of mentally ill people are staying with them in the home. The stakeholders such as DSWO and DDAWO should report such violations to the DCPU if they are found during their inspections. The environment in such homes will psychologically affect them too,” probation officer (non-institutional care) P Muthumanickam of DCPU told TOI on Thursday.
The resolution found prominence in the committee meeting following the case against the founder of Anbalayam home in Guntur T K S Senthilkumar for keeping three minor girls illegally at the home and sexually assaulting one of them recently. He was booked under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act and Juvenile Justice (care and protection) Act by the all women police station, Thiruverumbur. He was yet to be arrested.
The meeting also discussed the issue of some police officers not entertaining the complaints of minor girls about the sexual abuse and sexual assaults, citing their ‘vulnerability’ of turning hostile during the trial. The committee insisted that the police can take the complaints of minor girls with mental stability for the registration of the case.
The committee also resolved to instruct the hospitals to inform the child welfare committee (CWC) and DCPU in case of delivery of babies by teenage girls and unwed mothers and women of illegal contact so that action can be taken quickly to rescue the baby and avoid child trafficking.
DCPU appealed to have a separate room for the medical examination for the sexually assaulted minor girls at the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Government Hospital.
The meeting also pointed out the delay on the part of the Trichy Corporation and the public health department in issuing birth certificates to the children given for adoption from the specialised adoption agency in Trichy.