Dr Temsula Ao calls for best child abuse rehabilitation

Staff Reporter
DIMAPUR, OCTOBER 15

The second day of the state level workshop on promotion, protection and planning on the rights of children in Nagaland was marked by a call from the chairman of Nagaland State Commission for Women, Dr Temsula Ao to have “the best possible rehabilitation” for victims of child abuse.
The Padmashree Award winning writer wondered whether Nagaland has an “adequate system” in place where police, legal authorities, medical services and village panchayats or even civil societies could work in tandem with child rights organizations to ensure the best of rehabilitation facilities (to victims of child abuse).
“Very often it is seen that all these services seem to work as isolated units rather than a cohesive one and the problem continues to plague us. This is true of not only regarding child rights but in case of abused women and victims of domestic violence also,” she noted.
Most institutions or commissions, she said, cannot protect or administer justice to victims of abuse, be it children or women. “Because the Commission is merely the house – it is the starting point,” Dr Temsula reasoned, while adding that “this is so because the system itself is faulty.”
The actual purpose could only be realized when all those engaged in protective services come to function together, she felt. “The entire network of protective services has to be co-ordinated and proper infra-structure provided and trained personnel placed so that the purpose of setting up these institutions is served.”
Temsula pointed out that the fact that the latest winners of Nobel Peace Prize happened to be child rights activists (from Pakistan and India) was in itself a testament to the “acute awareness of the world body for accelerating the preventive, protective and rehabilitative process to safeguard the rights of the children the world over.”
She further reminded that the first step towards this exercise of accelerating the preventive, protective and rehabilitative process was the need for awareness and admission that “this evil” exists in the society.
And this process, Temsula said, must begin from the family – the most basic unit of society. “We also have to consider why the parents are not able to perform their duties. “In our society the reasons are many: poverty, illiteracy and conflict situations resulting in displacement of entire families on account of which parents themselves abandon or sell their children to strangers.”
“Likewise it is important to also question the factors that have contributed to the creation of ‘boy-soldiers’ in Nagaland today”, she said. “We have to understand under what circumstance had the parents allowed their children to join the insurgency armies,” stated.
Temsula also expressed her happiness seeing “more and more youth of our society” getting involved “in the efforts to solve our social problems.”