After abuse, rescued girls kept at boys’ home: Report

HARDLY ANY MEASURES WERE TAKEN TO ADDRESS THE SEVERE TRAUMA SUFFERED BY THE GIRLS FOLLOWING REPEATED ABUSE, THE NCPCR TEAM FOUND

NEWDELHI:THE National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), which sent a fourmember team to Uttar Pradesh’s Deoria in August after 26 girls were rescued from an illegally run shelter home where they were allegedly subjected to physical and sexual abuse, has found glaring inadequacies and insensitivity in the rehabilitation of the traumatised victims.

For one thing, despite their distressed mental state, the inmates weren’t even provided a “genderappropriate” and “secure” facility to move to, the country’s apex child rights body said in its report, which was submitted to the Union ministry of women and child development last week. The NCPCR sent the fourmember team on August 9, three days after the rescue. The inmates of Maa Vindhyavasini Mahila and Balika Sanrakshan Grih in Deoria, being run illegally by a couple, were rescued after a 10-year-old girl escaped from the shelter and complained to the police.the girls complained of having been subjected to physical and sexual abuse.

Immediately after the rescue, the victims were housed in a children’s home for boys, called Rajkiya Bal Grih, in Deoria, and were forced to share the facility for a week, according to the report. They were later shifted to separate government-run homes in Varanasi, Ballia and Allahabad.

“Against the gravity of the gruesome incident, the sexually abused girls were restored to a children home for boys. Thus failing to provide a secure, safe and comfortable space for (the) girls to recover from the trauma,” said the report, a copy of which has been seen by HT.

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