The Ministry of Women and Child Development rebuts some of the social media posts about Government’s decision of integration of Child Helpline 1098 with ERSS-112 which are of malafide intention and are not based on facts.
In this regard , the Ministry of Women and Child Development has clarified that the Childline service has always been a government supported service for children in distress and in vulnerable circumstances. Since the beginning, the Government has prioritised children and has given full funding to the Mother NGO CIF or Childline India Foundation to operate Childline through its partner NGOs.
Childline Services is defined in Juvenile Justice (Care & Protection of Children) Act, 2015 under section 2(25) as a twenty-four hours emergency outreach service for children in crisis which links them to emergency or long-term care and rehabilitation service. The Government can run it through any agency or NGO.
With a view to strengthen the child protection ecosystem and improve response of the administration towards children in distress, Ministry has rolled out the guidelines of Mission Vatsalya Scheme according to which Child Helpline will be run in coordination with State and District functionaries and integrated with the Emergency Response Support System 112 (ERSS-112) Helpline of Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
CIF is totally on board for the transition of Child Helpline. The two months’ notice period has been decided in consultation with the CIF. The notices have also been issued to CIF for States/UTs in phase-wise manner for handing over operations of Childline 1098 to respective States/UTs.
In the existing system of CIF, call logs are maintained manually and lack interoperability with other services like Police, Fire, ambulance services leading to loss of precious time in distress situations, however as per the new system, Child Helpline will be integrated with ERSS-112 and all Emergency calls will be forwarded to ERSS-112 for immediate response. Child Helpline with cover all districts of the country while CIF could at best cover only 568 districts in the country.
The Child Helpline system run in collaboration with the States and UTs will have positive effect on strengthening the Service Delivery structures under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act of 2015 as amended in 2021. The technical integration with the ERSS-112 is expected to usher in seamless flow of information which will aid repatriation and restoration of children in vulnerable situations within the district, state and across the States and UTs effectively.