Fall 2019 Journal: Custodial Torture – Juvenile Justice Homes in India

This article is the second article featured in our Fall 2019 journal. For the complete journal, please see the “Journal Archive” tab above.

by Devika Agrawal

Edited by: Emily Estus and Nick Pesta

This paper explores the alarming accounts of child abuse within India’s Juvenile Justice Homes (also known as observation homes, special homes, or children’s homes)—a system designed around the principles of dignity, respect, and rehabilitation to secure the rights of vulnerable children. Relying on a combination of qualitative data analysis from interviews with field experts and limited quantitative surveys from observation homes, this paper seeks to understand the major breakdowns in accountability inside these homes. It argues that weak structural design, ambiguities created by excess government bodies, and poor infrastructural support are the main causes for the inequities within the system. These problems are further exacerbated by the rampant corruption within Indian politics, the economic impetus for that corruption, and the historical cultural norms around children.

Introduction

At the start of the new millennium, the Indian parliament crafted a landmark set of laws that govern the 440 million children across the country, today called the Juvenile Justice Act (JJA) of 2000 [1]. The JJA’s acknowledgement that all children, regardless of whether they are victims or perpetrators of crimes, are deserving of love, dignity, and rehabilitative opportunities was deemed revolutionary [2]. The new law took a giant leap away from the punitive treatment of juvenile offenders by mandating that individual states provide similar resources, protocols, and institutions that serve groups of children that have been traditionally separated by the government and by public opinion.

For instance, a notable aspect of this law is the mandatory creation of child care institutions in every district of the nation. These spaces, often referred to as “children’s homes,” shelter all children that might be needing governmental custody. This includes both children in need of care and protection (CNCP) — who might have been rescued from being lost, homeless, or trafficked — and children in conflict with the law (CICL) who have been accused of crime. These homes were designed to place a special emphasis on the eventual reintegration of all children into society — but as the title of this article might suggest, the reality is a far cry from any of these critical objectives.

The JJA appears strong on paper, but its implementation as a group of laws that govern almost a fifth of the world’s child population needs to be tested. Over the last decade, research in different Indian states has shown that a majority of children in juvenile justice homes have been physically assaulted, often being whipped by belts, hung from ceilings, or beaten into false confessions [3].  There have been countless exposés of staff trafficking children into child labor and prostitution and even committing sexual assault [4]. A recent audit by the Tata Institute for Social Sciences uncovered the beating, drugging, and rape of children in a home for destitute girls in the state of Bihar, a horror compounded by years of public silence and apathy [5]. People living in the vicinity had repeatedly heard tortured cries at night, and many staff members who knew the grim details of the abuse remained silent because of “the might of the system” [6].

Even ignoring such brazen trauma, the physical and mental health of most children in these homes is pitiful. A series of surprise inspections in recent times has revealed massively overcrowded rooms, regularized corporal punishment, watered-down meals with barely any nutrition, and forced sleep deprivation [7-10]. Consequently, most children are malnourished and there is an alarmingly high incidence of anxiety, depression, and even suicide [11]. A recent study of juvenile justice homes in Delhi found that almost 40 percent of the boys had been sexually abused and five percent of them had exhibited physical signs of attempted suicide [12].

It is not hyperbolic to suggest that India’s juvenile justice system has perversely promoted the custodial torture of children, especially those from some of the most marginalized socioeconomic groups. Most children in juvenile justice homes are either former street children, runaways, or those rescued from factories — all from the bottom of India’s complex socioeconomic matrix. The authors of a study on juvenile justice homes in the state of Madhya Pradesh concluded, “Even a cursory look at the names of apprehended CICL shows that the majority of them are either Muslim or lower-caste Hindus” [13].

Despite the colossal public health implications for select socioeconomic groups, there is an absence of research being conducted by the government or external policy institutions, which has restricted any serious country-wide analysis of the problem. As a result, the global human rights community has remained largely unaware of the scale and import of this crisis, resulting in little international pressure on India to meaningfully address the issue.

This essay hopes to bridge these gaps in information by exploring the question: What are the main causes for the continued rampant child abuse within India’s child care institutions? To answer this, I rely on a combination of interviews with some of India’s leading activists in the field and small-scale NGO collected data to closely examine the key stakeholders of the juvenile justice system as well as the larger social, political, and economic push factors.

Outlining the System, Stakeholders, and Design Flaws

Children in the juvenile justice system interact with a range of stakeholders that each play an important role in the proliferation of this crisis. Given the JJA’s mandate to provide equal treatment to every child under one umbrella institution, victims and perpetrators move through the system in similar steps, encountering practically identical governmental bodies along the way. These bodies have undertaken the responsibility of assessing each case with due diligence, providing uninterrupted custodial care, and eventually releasing children with follow-up mechanisms for future support. This section walks us through the key contributions of each stakeholder within the system and the potential causes for their inaction in the face of child abuse.

Police

The police are the first point of contact for most children before they step into child care institutions. Each district of the country is mandated to have a Special Juvenile Police Unit (SJPU) — a body of police officers that are specifically trained in child rights — who must file initial cases and bring children forward to their first committee hearing within 24 hours [14]. While most states do not even have the requisite SJPU outlined by the law, the vast majority of SJPU’s are poorly trained and remain ignorant of the JJA [15].

This preliminary interaction sets the tone for what India’s most vulnerable children are to expect for the remainder of their time in government custody. It is not unusual to hear cases of physical abuse and mistreatment at the police station, even before their official registration within the system. While it is specifically mentioned that “In no case shall a juvenile in conflict with law be placed in a police lockup or lodged in a jail,”[16] the police scarcely adhere to this rule. A study of observation homes and special homes across Maharashtra found that amongst the CICL who had been interviewed, 65 percent were kept in the lock-up ranging for a timespan of 2–13 days [17]. While the study also found that the police behaved affectionately with CNCP, often offering them food or spending money from their own pockets, CICL were treated abusively. Sixty-seven percent of CICL had reportedly been slapped, 30 percent were beaten severely, 32 percent had been whipped with a belt, 15 percent had been hung from the ceiling, and 1.7 percent had been sexually abused [18]. Qualitative evidence has revealed multiple case studies where children have been restrained in jails, underfed, or beaten into confessions, predominantly affecting boys from underprivileged backgrounds [19]. Many children refrain from speaking out on these experiences because they have been threatened by the police into silence.

As far as the causes for such maltreatment go, state governments are perfectly aware of this widespread phenomena and argue that this is the result of “inadequate training,” a “lack of clarity on determination of age among police officers for children in conflict with law,” “no fit facility to house CNPC and CICL between sunset and sunrise,” and a “reluctance to release CICL on bail due to social pressure from victim’s kin, media, etc” [20]. While many of their excuses are grounded in infrastructural limitations or widespread demands for retributive justice over rehabilitative justice (following the infamous 2012 gang-rape case involving underage offenders), it is important to note the cultural dimensions of this problem and the historical acceptance and normalization of violence against children across India.

For generations, the physical and psychological abuse of children has been permissible by cultural beliefs and purported economic constraints, such as “the need for child marriage” or superstitions that “sex with a young virgin” can cure sexually transmitted diseases [21]. Acts of violence like slapping or the twisting of ears are routine, and children are often expected to engage in laborious activities from a young age to contribute towards the family income. A quick glance at international statistics shows that “India has the world’s largest number of sexually abused children, with a child below 16 years raped every 155th minute, a child below 10 every 13th hour, and one in every 10 children sexually abused at any point in time. India also has the largest number of missing children” [22]. These social and cultural patterns invariably translate into the weak implementation of safety standards for children within the system. Moreover, the socialization of communities into a culture that upholds violence as a natural tool to control behaviors provides little incentive for children or their families to report these violations of their human rights — much less to view them as such.

Child Welfare Committees and Juvenile Justice Boards

After their cases have been registered by the police, the two groups of children have to face different legal committees with magisterial powers to determine their short- and long-term outcomes; this may be sending them back to their families, arranging for counseling, or declaring them guilty. “Committees are essentially the gatekeepers of the system,” says Ms. Suparna Gupta, the director of Aangan. “They are empowered to deal exclusively amongst themselves and are the final authority with regard to cases for the care, protection, treatment, development and rehabilitation of children.” CNCP meet with Child Welfare Committees (CWCs) while CICL meet with Juvenile Justice Boards (JJBs).

While CWCs and JJBs are the most crucial legal powers in these children’s journeys, there have been an endless number of cases where these committees simply do not show up, leaving children to languish in the system while awaiting their trials — reportedly anywhere from two weeks to six months [23]. For example, CWCs of four Punjab districts sit on a quarterly basis while the remaining meet once a month. Many CWC members across Karnataka were found to be heading NGOs, serving in various government sectors, or running professional consultancies — jobs which can be quite demanding in terms of both time and energy [24]. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights found that only 516 of the 660 districts have established their CWCs, and among these, the membership is majority male and over the age of 65 [25]. At the very worst end of the spectrum, numerous CWC and JJB members were found to have sexually assaulted minors in the privacy of their cubicles during purported legal proceedings [26]. The committee members’ busy schedules, part-time jobs, and the general lack of diversity among staff presents huge problems for the legal judgements being made on behalf of children. This can be attributed to the fundamental design flaws within the JJA.

According to the law, members of each district’s CWC and JJB are selected by state governments. Prima facie, the localized decision-making power seems crucial given the varying needs across India’s many ethnically diverse states. But instead of electing qualified sociologists, psychologists, and child care specialists (as dictated by the JJA) [27] — the state invariably elects political appointees who have little to no experience in the realization of child rights. As explained by Enakshi Ganguly [28] one of the co-founders of HAQ Center for Child Rights in New Delhi, “People who need to be gratified politically are placed in these roles.” Ultimately, state governments see CWCs and JJBs as low-priority jobs that can be handed off to various political henchmen as some sort of remuneration for their campaigning services.

One might pause and ask: Why would committee membership be so deeply coveted by political appointees, and how would they be “gratified” by such immense responsibility over the lives of children? One way to understand the various dimensions of this problem is to analyze the socio-political incentives that drive these stakeholders. Ms. Bharti Ali [29], another leading activist in the field and co-director of HAQ Center for Child Rights, argues that the positions on CWCs and JJBs have grown in popularity because of the magisterial powers that come along with them. Even just the ability to flaunt their newfound power in the districts where they work can translate into many other benefits, open doors, and lead to social standing to negotiate more power. This political phenomenon mirrors the professional motivations of most other government employees in a variety of sectors, such as education. With the promise of a stable job, low-levels of accountability, and access to a plethora of external benefits like pensions and health insurance, important positions of power in the social development of the nation have been overrun with citizens trying to establish a place for themselves within a challenging, unforgiving economy.

Another important factor that derails the performance of CWCs and JJBs is the general lack of fiscal and human resources. Approximately 0.04 percent of the total national budget has been allocated for child protection, and only a slice of that amount gets earmarked for child care institutions [30]. Dozens of reports on the juvenile justice system admit to the dearth of infrastructural resources, the pittance travel allowances that prevent committee members from actually commuting to their hearings, and the incredibly low salaries that disincentivize honest, hard work [31]. Child Welfare Officers and Juvenile Justice Board members are barely remunerated for their time, as they are given “honorariums” of less than $10 a sitting. While “ideally, the honorarium amount should not be too high so as to replace the position of a regular salary,” the running amount has been considered trivial and professionally debilitating [32].

Probation Officers

Pending the inquiry by their judicial committees, children are placed in a specific juvenile justice home, depending on the nature of their entry into the system. Orphans or victims of trafficking are often placed in “children’s homes” that are run by missionaries or NGOs, while children in violation of the law are often placed in “observation homes” or “special homes,” which tend to have a more rehabilitative focus [33]. While that is what the law mandates, most homes across the country rarely adhere to these divisions. Children are frequently misallocated, resulting in uncomfortable groupings of victims and offenders across all ages and genders [34]. Once children have been placed in government custody, their direct channel of communication with their adjudicating committees and their families are Probation Officers (POs). Essentially their personalized caseworkers, POs are staff-members of the juvenile justice home, entrusted with attending to all the physical and socioemotional needs of the child. POs learn and record each child’s personal history, provide avenues for education and play, and importantly, they follow up with the child after their release from the institution [35].

Unfortunately, as is consistent with the larger failures of the system, this is not the reality of what POs actually do. Given the national and state-wide restrictions on funding, there simply is not enough capacity for POs to allocate the care and attention needed to learn about each child or to follow up with them after their release. A considerable challenge within this landscape is the reality that India is a geographically massive country, with an equally massive population to protect under the system. With a minimum requirement of one observation home per district (which is a gigantic entity, sometimes covering 11 million people) [36] juvenile justice homes face the risk of being overcrowded, understaffed, and too under-resourced to provide even basic resources like food, bedding, or a change of clothes [37]. In the case of Maharashtra, for example, the child-to-PO ratio is 139:1, while the legally prescribed ratio is 33:1 [38].

Ms. Suparna Gupta — the founder and director of Aangan, an NGO that works to reform over six hundred juvenile justice homes across the country — argues that this lack of funding has created a vicious cycle of vulnerability for children. “When there are mass raids in factories by NGOs like Pratham, they bring about 100 kids back to the home, and they will just be parked there because there is no place for them — not even to stretch your legs and sleep. So there are all these exhausted children, and then there is the pressure to say, ‘look at their health, let’s quickly send them home’, and they get sent back into this cycle of being trafficked. In a lot of districts, one home is just not enough.” While family reunification is generally the most desired outcome, this can be an extremely dangerous option without a thorough home assessment. A recent study that examines the child-trafficking pathway from Bihar to Rajasthan found that the infrastructural problems within the juvenile justice system have exacerbated the potential for children to be re-trafficked. By surveying various POs across multiple districts in Bihar, they found “hugely divergent responses as to whether a home verification report is conducted,” and that “respondents stated that thorough assessments of the potential risks and suitability of a family environment ‘do not physically happen’” [39]. The fact that most children come from low-income, rural, or migrant families presents a particular challenge for POs to ascertain their family situations within their limited budgets. Given a lack of home assessments, coupled with growing pressure for deinstitutionalization, children are acutely vulnerable to being exploited.

The severe underestimation of what it costs to protect India’s children has forced the government to cut corners where they can, leaving POs with little support on the ground. They have dissolved important job vacancies within child care institutions and have been filling vacant positions with underpaid contractual workers [40].

Finally, similar to the selection process of committee members, the manner in which POs are appointed breeds a systematic indifference towards the protection of child rights. Aangan’s mixed-methods study on POs across Maharashtra found that there was no formal process by which they were entrusted with this job [41]. More than half of the POs surveyed had not even applied for the position but were arbitrarily transferred to fill vacancies within the district. As a result, they had little to no expertise in counseling, mentoring, or evaluating the socio-psychological needs of children.

Given the unpredictable nature of their appointments, POs scarcely receive training to prepare for the immense amount of responsibilities that are thrust upon them. A PO working in an NGO-run institution for the last decade said that in all his years on the job, “I have never attended any training for any subject…we learn on the job”[42]. As a consequence, there is a general sense of ignorance towards child rights and overwhelmingly negative assumptions about the need for rehabilitation. When asked about how they counsel the children in their custody, some PO’s responded that “counseling will not make a difference if they are repeat offenders” [43] — touting the exact retributivist sentiments that the JJA sought to dismantle.

Inspection Committees

We have just outlined the three key stakeholders that children directly interact with — the police, the judicial committees, and their POs within the institutions. Our final stakeholder is one that has power over all the others within the system, entrusted with upholding professional ethics and accountability: inspection committees.

Inspection committees are mandated to “visit and oversee the conditions in the institutions and appropriateness of the processes for safety, wellbeing and permanence, review the standards of care and protection being followed by the institutions, [and] look out for any incidence of violation of child rights” at least once every three months [44]. However, inspection committees are arguably among the most ineffective stakeholders of the juvenile justice system. This is because the JJA mandates that inspectors must be members of “the State Commission for the Protection of Child Rights or the State Human Rights Commission, medical and other experts, voluntary organizations and reputed social workers” [45]. A close reading of this instruction reveals that committee members are essentially full-time employees in other institutions and in all likelihood rarely have the time to do regular or thorough inspections [46].

Their lack of availability to fulfill their inspection duties is further complicated by the ongoing creation of multiple bodies who have the power to inspect and report injustices within child care institutions, creating ambiguity over who is accountable to whom. For example, inspection committees are tasked with inspection, but CWCs and JJBs also have the power to inspect and take action against any site [47]. Moreover, the central and state governments must also “monitor and evaluate the functioning of the children’s homes at time periods and through persons and institutions specified by that Government” [48]. While it might seem wise to allow multiple committees the ability to report their findings and take legal action, giving various distinct bodies the exact same power comes with the risk of each committee relinquishing that job to someone else. Ms. Ganguly has found that “There are so many bodies who are responsible at any given point in time. The institutions will say that the CWC does not report enough, and the CWC will look towards the inspection committees, and so it goes.” Even the Ministry of Women and Child Development, which is the federal body in charge of all vulnerable children, admits to the confusion within the question of accountability.

Another structure that complicates accountability is the legal involvement of external organizations who volunteer to run children’s homes. Ms. Gupta finds that when the state has clear management of the home, it’s much easier to hold someone accountable. She has been openly critical of multilateral organizations like UNICEF entering the justice system and undertaking governmental responsibilities when they are not ultimately held accountable by anyone. One of the things Ms. Gupta has been advocating for is the recognition that regardless of the management, children are always legally in government custody, and there needs to be a clear body of inspectors that can hold state and non-state actors accountable on a regular basis.

Conclusion: Social Implications and Final Recommendations

Viewing the system in its entirety, we see that the mistreatment of children across juvenile justice homes has been an ongoing, permitted phenomena due to four factors: flimsy infrastructural support in the form of economic and human resources, inefficient selection criteria for jobs that are immensely important, sociocultural tendencies that lean towards political corruption and the physical exploitation of children, and a total sense of ambiguity over who is responsible for upholding the system. All these push factors — and a long list of others too intricate and disheartening to mention in this article — intersect with each other to create the amalgamation of buildings, committees, and individuals that have brought immense harm upon approximately 40 million children within the system.

What’s most unsettling about this failure in public policy (and failure in human rights) is the sheer quantity of children that are being implicated from impoverished, lower-caste, and Muslim communities. Considering the main demographics that are vulnerable to entering juvenile justice homes reveals how the system ultimately institutionalizes neglect and oppression of specific subgroups of Indian society — those that have been pushed to the fringes of political participation, social equality, and economic opportunity for as long as their communities can remember. The government has essentially created a reinforcing mechanism for socioeconomic deprivation where children of marginalized communities enter the system, experience abuse, and face increasing risks of remaining marginalized after their eventual release from these homes. This demographic salience has also meant that political elites have been lukewarm at best towards seizing the issue and pushing the conversation as a national priority. Any public outrage after media exposure of specific sexual assault cases in childshelters has been sporadic and passing, perhaps even fueling the impression of systemic change without any meaningful political action. A 2007 study found that “In the last four years, on an average, only 2.7 percent of the questions asked in Parliament by members related to children” and that “60 percent of these questions were on education” [49].

What’s most unsettling about this failure in public policy (and failure in human rights) is the sheer quantity of children that are being implicated from impoverished, lower-caste, and Muslim communities. Considering the main demographics that are vulnerable to entering juvenile justice homes reveals how the system ultimately institutionalizes neglect and oppression of specific subgroups of Indian society — those that have been pushed to the fringes of political participation, social equality, and economic opportunity for as long as their communities can remember. The government has essentially created a reinforcing mechanism for socioeconomic deprivation where children of marginalized communities enter the system, experience abuse, and face increasing risks of remaining marginalized after their eventual release from these homes. This demographic salience has also meant that political elites have been lukewarm at best towards seizing the issue and pushing the conversation as a national priority. Any public outrage after media exposure of specific sexual assault cases in childshelters has been sporadic and passing, perhaps even fueling the impression of systemic change without any meaningful political action. A 2007 study found that “In the last four years, on an average, only 2.7 percent of the questions asked in Parliament by members related to children” and that “60 percent of these questions were on education” [49].

It follows, then, that raising widespread public awareness about this issue is a critical solution that might garner more political support for a costly systemic overhaul. As Enakshi Ganguly insightfully noted, “Today, we are not doing social policy based on the principles of non-discrimination and enhancing dignity anymore. Because social change is also measured in the same way that corporate change is measured, we see that investments in social policy will never yield immediate returns. That’s how we’re in this mess — nobody has the patience to really build the system ground-up” [50]. Beyond just articles in the media — which only target a small segment of India’s literate (and typically elite) population — public information campaigns that inspire a sense of outrage among the communities most affected are vital to change. Films, TV shows, and school curricula could start including figures on the magnitude of this crisis, using anonymized case-studies about the experiences of children within the system. NGOs could collaborate with popular public figures who are widely known and viewed by all demographics of Indians, thereby generating political support through their endorsements. The Indian government has historically capitalized on the general illiteracy and ignorance of its citizens as a means to uphold the status quo, which is why a strong public policy solution must also break this cycle.

Other policy fixes include changes in selection procedures for many of these stakeholders who have been given enormous responsibilities over the lives of children. Disallowing states from picking their political supporters and mandating that positions of members on inspection committees, CWCs, and JJBs be fulltime positions would be fruitful, easy fixes that might encourage more oversight and professionalism within the system. But given that much of the institutional corruption can be attributed to sociocultural tendencies, all of these policies have to be implemented in tandem with long-term sociological solutions.

For example, our cultural perception of these children has not yet aligned with the facts of what brought them into the system to begin with. As exemplified by the probation officers’ dismissive attitudes towards providing counseling, treatment of children across the country is still largely determined by the lack of understanding of the origins of their criminality. Studies on children’s homes found that 10 percent have never been to school and 72.5 percent had already begun full-time work at the age of 14 [51]. In fact, the vast majority of these children are contributing as much as 40 percent of their family’s income before being apprehended. This data reveals how children in India are prematurely thrust into adulthood, and thereby exposed to a plethora of vulnerabilities that place them in the system to begin with. “If you push young people into adulthood so early, they will behave like adults sans the cognitive ability to, and with whatever role models of adulthood around them,” says Ms. Ganguly, who has been advocating for a radical shift in our discourse on juvenile delinquents. She argues that “We are creating these terrible circumstances and then punishing them for it violently.” A robust training program for police officers and probation officers on child rights (whilst transparently sharing data on the causes for their criminality) might be an effective way to kick-start these cultural shifts.

Finally, from an equity standpoint, one of the most important solutions might be simply to seek continuous feedback from the children within the system. By mandating a monthly feedback process, where children can freely speak their minds, we could simultaneously learn about their experiences of abuse, their individual contexts that brought them into the system, and possible solutions to keep them safe.

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Devika Agrawal (MPP ’19) is an alumna of the Goldman School of Public Policy.

Endnotes

1. Annual Report 2013-2014 (Ministry of Women and Child Development, 2015) http://www.wcd.nic.in/sites/default/files/AR2014-15.pdf, pg. 43.
2. Suparna Gupta and Aditya Bose, A Real Opportunity for Change: What Young Offenders Need and How Probation Officers Respond (Mumbai: The Aangan Trust, 2010) http://aanganindia.org/pdf/real-oppourtunity-for-change.pdf, pg. 2.
3. International Colloquium on Juvenile Justice: A Report. (New Delhi: HAQ: Centre for Child Rights, 2013), pg. 45
4. India’s Hell Holes: Child Sexual Assault in Juvenile Justice Homes (New Delhi: Asian Center for Human Rights, 2013)
5. Poonam, Snigdha. “In Muzaffarpur’s shelter home, a web of silence shielded sexual abuse” The Hindustan Times. August 9th 2018.https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/a-web-of-silence-shielded-sexual-abuse-at-bihar-s-muzaffarpur-shelter-home/story-XnX0uvz17B8zuzNiIygeqI.html
6. Snighda Poonam, “In Muzaffarpur’s shelter home, a web of silence shielded sexual abuse”
7. International Colloquium on Juvenile Justice: A Report. (New Delhi: HAQ: Centre for Child Rights, 2013), pg. 45
8. Durgesh Jha, “Overcrowding, poor infrastructure plague state-run children’s homes” HAQ Centre for Child Rights, Jan 30th 2012.
9. Sovi Vidyadharan, “Shocking Practices Found in Govt-run Children’s Homes” (HAQ Centre for Child Rights, May 6th 2014) http://haqcrc.org/news/shocking-practices-found-govt-run-childrens-homes/
10. Namita Bhandare, “India’s Children in Crisis With Epidemic of Abuse in Institutions” The Quint. September 29th 2018. https://www.thequint.com/news/india/abuse-of-children-in-indias-institutions-reveals-nationwide-crisis-of-reform
11. Shawna J. Lee, Richard M. Tolman, “Childhood Sexual Abuse and Adult Work Outcomes” (Oxford University Press: Social Work Research, Vol. 30, No. 2 June 2006), pg. 83-92.
12. Deepti Pagare, Meena S. G, Ram Jiloha, M.M. Singh, “Sexual abuse of street children brought to an observation home” (Indian pediatrics 42, 2005), pg. 134-1139.
13. M. Vesvikar, R. Sharma, “The Juvenile Justice System in India: Observation Homes and Current Debates” (London: Palgrave Macmillian, Arnull E., Fox D. (eds) Cultural Perspectives on Youth Justice, 2016)
14. Child Welfare Committees in India: A comprehensive analysis aimed at strengthening the Juvenile Justice System for children in need of care and protection. (National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights, 2013)  http://ncpcr.gov.in/view_file.php?fid=461. pg. 37
15. Ibid. pg. 30
16. Nilima Mehta, “Child Protection and Juvenile Justice System: For children in need of care and protection” (CHILDLINE India Foundation, 2008), https://www.childlineindia.org.in/pdf/CP-JJ-CNCP.pdf. pg. 37
17. Suparna Gupta, “Changing Spaces” (Mumbai: Aangan, 2008), pg. 12.
18. Ibid.
19. Chatura Rao, “School of Hard Knocks” (Caravan Magazine, August 1st 2018)
20. Strengthening Rehabilitation & Restoration of Children under the Juvenile Justice System. (Unpublished: UNICEF INDIA), pg. 39
21. Paromita Shastri and Enakshi Ganguly Thukral, “Blind Alley: Juvenile Justice in India” (HAQ: Center for Child Rights, 2007) http://haqcrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/blind-alley-juvenile-justice-in-india.pdf. pg. 18
22. Ibid.
23. Suparna Gupta (Aangan, Mumbai), interviewed by Devika Agrawal. Berkeley, CA. November 22nd 2018.
24. India’s Hell Holes: Child Sexual Assault in Juvenile Justice Homes (New Delhi: Asian Center for Human Rights, 2013), pg. 39
25. Ibid. pg. 25
26. Ibid. pg. 25
27. Nilima Mehta. “Child Protection and Juvenile Justice System: For children in need of care and protection” pg. 35- 45.
28. Ms. Ganguly has authored various influential reports about the failures of the JJ Act and has continuously participated in governmental drafting committees of laws and policies associated with vulnerable children. She has trained hundreds of NGOs, teachers, police officers and members of the judiciary on child rights.
29. As a trained lawyer, Ms. Ali has been instrumental in the advocacy and policy-making discourse for the reformation of India’s juvenile justice practices, and she has developed training materials for police and government agents within the system. She currently sits on the Gender Sensitization and Internal Complaints Committee of the Supreme Court of India.
30. Suparna Gupta (Aangan, Mumbai), interviewed by Devika Agrawal. Berkeley, CA. November 22nd 2018.
31. Strengthening Rehabilitation & Restoration of Children under the Juvenile Justice System. (Unpublished: UNICEF INDIA), pg. 26
32. Child Welfare Committees in India: A comprehensive analysis aimed at strengthening the Juvenile Justice System for children in need of care and protection. (New Delhi: National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights, 2013) http://ncpcr.gov.in/view_file.php?fid=461. pg. 75
33. Nilima Mehta, “Child Protection and Juvenile Justice System: For children in need of care and protection” pg. 36-37 and pg. 55.
34. India’s Hell Holes: Child Sexual Assault in Juvenile Justice Homes (New Delhi: Asian Center for Human Rights, 2013), pg. 4
35. Suparna Gupta and Aditya Bose, A Real Opportunity for Change: What Young Offenders Need and How Probation Officers Respond. pg. 7
36. Child Welfare Committees in India: A comprehensive analysis aimed at strengthening the Juvenile Justice System for children in need of care and protection. (New Delhi: National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights, 2013) http://ncpcr.gov.in/view_file.php?fid=461. pg. 26
37. Suparna Gupta (Aangan, Mumbai), interviewed by Devika Agrawal. Berkeley, CA. November 22nd 2018.
38. Ibid. pg. 10
39. Is this Protection? Analysing India’s Approach to the Rescue and Reintegration of Children Trafficked for Labor Exploitation (Harvard FXB, 2006) https://cdn2.sph.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/114/2017/12/Is-this-Protection-Final.pdf pg. 28
40. Bharti Ali (HAQ: Center for Child Rights, New Delhi), interviewed by Devika Agrawal. Berkeley, CA. November 30th 2018.
41. Suparna Gupta and Aditya Bose, “A Real Opportunity for Change: What Young Offenders Need and How Probation Officers Respond” pg. 18
42. Ibid. pg. 25
43. Ibid. pg. 26
44. India’s Hell Holes: Child Sexual Assault in Juvenile Justice Homes (New Delhi: Asian Center for Human Rights, 2013), pg. 2
45. Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2007. Rule 63 (4).
46. Ibid. pg 34.
47. Nilima Mehta, “Child Protection and Juvenile Justice System: For children in need of care and protection” pg. 46-48
48. Ibid.
49. Paromita Shastri and Enakshi Ganguly Thukral. “Blind Alley: Juvenile Justice in India” pg. 17
50. Enakshi Ganguly (HAQ: Center for Child Rights, New Delhi), interviewed by Devika Agrawal. Berkeley, CA. December 2nd 2018.
51.  Suparna Gupta and Aditya Bose, “A Real Opportunity for Change: What Young Offenders Need and How Probation Officers Respond” pg. 38