KATHMANDU, JUNE 11
The Children's Regulation, 2022, recently issued by the federal government to replace the 1995 regulation has set minimum criteria for establishment and operation of child care homes in the country.
According to annex 4 of the regulation, a child care home should be equipped with children-friendly physical infrastructure with the capacity to accommodate at least 20 children, as specified by the National Child Rights Council. "The child care home also needs physical infrastructure and human and financial resources to ensure that boys, girls, and sexual and gender minority children are kept separately and safely," it says.
Similarly, the regulation requires the child care home to make arrangements of homely shelter, food, healthcare facility, education, vocational training, sports and recreational activities for the physical, mental and intellectual development of children.
The child care home should have the provision of teachers as required. "If there are children with different capability who cannot go to the school, the child care home needs to provide them with the opportunity of informal education and skill development," the regulation reads. Likewise, it has been made mandatory for each child care home to form a children's club for holistic development of the minors. Office-bearers and employees of the child care home should undergo training on child rights and protection, in addition to making efforts for reintegration of children with their parents or guardians.
According to the procedure, a child care home should have adequate space and rooms for eating, sleeping and studying, along with security arrangements, necessary textbooks and educational materials, children-friendly environment free of physical and mental problem of any kind, provision of action against the guilty immediately in case of violence against children and molestation, special arrangements for differently-abled children and disabled-friendly facilities, and separate study rooms, bathrooms, and toilets for male and female children.
The child care home has the obligation of providing care for beneficiaries until they attain the age of 18 years. If parent(s) or guardian(s) of any child living in children's home is traced, he/she should be reintegrated with the concerned parent or guardian.
The country has a total of 489 child care homes as of 2021. Majority of them are concentrated in Kathmandu valley.
According to the annual report (2020-21) of National Child Rights Council under the Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizens, it carried out an onsite monitoring of 163 child care homes in 17 local levels of Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Bhaktapur, Chitwan, and Tanahun, which accommodate 3,382 children.
A version of this article appears in the print on June 12, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
