Help for children in distress a call away

Minna Zutshi

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, October 6

You see a child in distress and your instinct tells you that intervention is required to safeguard the interests of the child. Do you close your eyes to the child's plight? Or you start looking for some help for the child? Well, the help is just a phone call away. Your one phone call on the CHILDLINE 1098 can make a difference - a vital difference - to the child's life.

The CHILDLINE 1098, Ludhiana, receives 30-40 distress calls every month, according to the helpline director in Ludhiana, Kuldip Singh Mann, who is also the secretary of the Swami Ganga Nand Bhuri Wale International Foundation - the NGO working in collaboration with the CHILDLINE India Foundation (CIF) in Ludhiana.

Barring a few fake calls, most of the calls require direct intervention. The callers report cases of child sexual abuse and child labour. Recalling one such instance, Mann said a blind girl called up the helpline number to complain against her father who was molesting her. The girl's complaint led to her father's arrest and after a series of counselling sessions, the girl was rehabilitated in her joint family.

Trained psychologists of the CHILDLINE 1098 provide emotional support and guidance to the children in distress.

The CHILDLINE also organises awareness drives for children. "We work in close coordination with the district advisory board that has the deputy commissioner as its chairman. Our team members visit hutments and vehras to educate people about the child rights," Mann said.

The schools are instructed, time and again, by the District Education Officers, to create awareness among the children about the CHILDLINE. If the schools devote three-four minutes daily during the morning assembly to tell the children about the helpline, it will be a great service to the cause of child rights, said Mann.