Child Rights Clinic

Clinics

Child Rights Clinic

The Child Rights Clinic (“Clinic”) is an advocacy and policy initiative at Jindal Global Law School. One of the key objectives of the Clinic is to work with students at the law school to promote learning outside the classroom by connecting them to the ground reality. Students are heavily involved in the policy and advocacy work of the Clinic currently via research. The Clinic aims to also train students for legal internships with organisations working in the field for better learning outcomes.

Other core objectives of the Clinic include research on child rights issues to help bridge the gap in the Indian child rights discourse, training students and stakeholders in approaching children’s rights using a trauma-informed and child rights approach and creating legal awareness material to enable better access to information and resources for the community.

The Clinic relies heavily on working in collaboration with and supporting the work of national children’s rights bodies, community-based organizations, and NGOs to ensure that the work is more impactful and can influence policy. The Clinic hopes to introduce child rights courses across law schools and create a strong network of child rights clinics across India in the future. The Clinic is young but has been able to take on a few challenges in the last few years. The Clinic’s work started by creating a Child Rights Law Manual in collaboration with NALSA. Currently, the Clinic is involved in multiple projects with Government organizations and grassroots organisations.

Vision and Mission

The Clinic’s core aim is to work with the community, activists, and stakeholders working in the realm of children’s rights both nationally and internationally to promote the rights of all children using a trauma-informed and child rights approach. The Clinic’s work focuses on both children in need of care and protection and children in conflict with the law.

Work undertaken by Child Rights Clinic in 2023

Advocacy Work

The Child Rights Clinic in collaboration with the YP Foundation created a child-friendly guide to the POCSO. The guide breaks down 1) the offenses under the act, 2) how to report instances of abuse, and 3) the process of reporting along with the rights at each stage of the reporting process. The guide will be tested with children in January 2024 and then translated into Hindi to be circulated in schools in Delhi.
As a part of the initiative to make child rights more accessible, the clinic has been in the process of creating a blog focusing on child rights. This would be the first such blog dedicated to children’s rights in the Indian context. Presently, the clinic is testing the Beta version in live mode.
The clinic, in collaboration with iProbono, India, is building a case repository relating to various child rights issues. The repository aims to be a ready reckoner for child rights issues to be used by practitioners/academicians in the field. The repository will be divided into various topics such as POCSO, children in conflict with the law, child labor, child trafficking, and further sub-topics such as bail, charges, and offences.
The Clinic shared comments with the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, Government of India on the Draft Guidelines concerning Support Persons under Section 39 of the POCSO, The clinic is also working with iProbono to research accessibility in Higher Educational Institutions for their project on creating a model accessibility policy for Higher Education Institutes emphasizing law schools in India.

Legal Aid Work

Research on International laws and practices/guidelines/protocols followed to secure minors’ right to property after their parent/s have passed for a Writ Petition before the Delhi High Court.

Conferences/Webinars/Guest lectures

Organised a guest lecture on “Role of Support Persons in POCSO cases” by Ms. Kushi Kappala (Enfold) and Ms. Aishwarya Singh (iProbono). The lecture delved into the need to define the role of support persons in light of the order by the Supreme Court in Bachpan Bachao Andolan v. Union of India.
Organised a lecture by Advocate Ashish Kumar in March 2023 on “Balancing the Rights of Children in Conflict with the Law in POCSO cases” which aimed to provide insight into trials from the lens of cases where a child has been accused of committing an act of child sexual abuse. The speaker dealt with the intricacies of balancing the rights of the Child in Conflict with the Law i.e., the child who has been accused of committing the offence and the child victim in such instances.
Conducted a panel discussion on “Representing Children in Child Sexual Abuse cases” in March 2023. The discussion delved into the need for legal representation for child sexual abuse survivors and the practicalities of representing survivors in POCSO cases. The panel consisted of Ms. Urmi Chudgar, a Child Rights Lawyer with over 5 years of experience, and Ms. Nimisha Menon, Program Officer at iProbono India. The panel was moderated by Prof. Avaantika Chawla, Assistant Director, Child Rights Clinic.
Organised a multi-stakeholder consultation was held in June 2023 to receive feedback on the primers created by the students on reporting child sexual abuse. The consultation was attended by representatives from child rights organisations such as Tulir, Enfold, HAQ, Counsel to Secure Justice, Project CACA, YP foundation, and iProbono as well as independent experts including psychologists and social workers.
Attended the Justice with Children Seminar and Training as a part of preparatory efforts for the 2025 World Congress on Justice with Children at National Law University Delhi from 15^th to 17^th December 2023
Attended the workshop on Tracing Response, Support, and Rehabilitation for Child Protection at Civic Sabha organised by Civic Data Labs in New Delhi on 7^thNovember 2023 at IIC, Delhi.

Courses/Summer and Winter Clinic/paralegals

A month-long summer clinic was conducted in July 2023. The Clinic introduced students to the basics of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012 and the Juvenile Justice Act 2015. The students spent the month reworking the child-friendly Primer on reporting child sexual abuse based on comments from the consultation conducted in June.

Publications

Created a compendium on State and Union Territory Victim Compensation Schemes: The clinic created a compendium of all State and Union Territory Victim Compensation Schemes along with contact information of State and Union Territory legal services authorities. The Compendium was circulated amongst various child rights networks in July 2023.
Created a summary of the Law Commission of India Report No. 283 on Age of Consent under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012 for easy access. Circulated to various child rights organisations in October 2023.
Created a report analysing NCRB Data on Crimes Against Children 2022 in December 2023.

Social Media Engagaments

The clinic is running a campaign on “Child Rights Legislation of the Month” through Instagram and Linkedin, wherein the clinic puts out information that demystifies child rights legislation every month. So far, the clinic has posted about the POCSO and the JJ Act. The clinic also conducted a short campaign on breaking stereotypes around child sexual abuse.
The clinic, on its Instagram handle, also posts stories about child rights updates to further child rights legal literacy amongst young persons.

Child Rights Clinic