Suhanubhav Foundation will approach the society and system and create an awareness and promotion of legal and social rights of a child and woman in the following manner:

Protection of child rights

Think about children who are abandoned by birth or by forced circumstances. They do not get a chance to step in a school. They are left to fend for themselves on the streets. They suffer from many forms of violence. They do not have access to even primary healthcare. They are subjected to cruel and inhumane treatments every day. They are children – innocent, young and beautiful – who are deprived of their rights.

In the history of human rights, the rights of children are the most ratified. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) defines Child Rights as the minimum entitlements and freedoms that should be afforded to every citizen below the age of 18 regardless of race, national origin, colour, gender, language, religion, opinions, origin, wealth, birth status, disability, or other characteristics.

Suhanubhav Foundation may provide access to education, nutrition, healthcare, and emergency relief, as well infrastructure for equal opportunities to such children. Though a noteworthy progress has been achieved, yet in India, there is still a long way to go in realising the rights of children. Though all the relevant rules and policies are in place, there is a lack in enforcement initiatives. As barriers, there are several factors that forbid effective implementation of the laws. Due to relatively low success in achieving concrete child development outcomes in India, the condition of underprivileged kids and underprivileged youth is harsh and needs urgent attention. There is a need to intensify efforts for children welfare at all levels to implement the rules and provisions of the Convention and contribute to create a world suitable for children.

India has always recognized the category of persons below the age of 18 years as distinct legal entity. That is precisely why people can vote or get a driving license or enter into legal contracts only when they attain the age of 18 years. Marriage of a girl below the age of 18 years and a boy below 21 years is restrained under the Child Marriage Restraint Act 1929. Moreover, after ratifying the UNCRC in 1992, India changed its law on juvenile justice to ensure that every person below the age of 18 years, who is in need of care and protection, is entitled to receive it from the State.

This means all persons in village/town/city below the age of 18 years have to be treated as children and need assistance and support. What makes a person a ‘child’ is the person’s ‘age.’ Even if a person under the age of 18 years is married and has children of her/his own, she/he is recognized as a child according to international standards.

Why do children need special attention?

 

1. Children are more vulnerable than adults to the conditions under which they live.
2. Hence, they are more affected than any other age group by the actions and inaction of governments and society.
3. In most societies, including ours, views persist that children are their parents’ property, or are adults in the making, or are not yet ready to contribute to society.
4. Children are not seen as people who have a mind of their own, a view to express, the capacity to make a choice and an ability to decide.
5. Instead of being guided by adults, their life is decided by adults.
6. Children have no votes or political influence and little economic power. Too often, their voices are not heard.
7. Children are particularly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.

The UNCRC outlines the fundamental human rights that should be afforded to children in four broad classifications that suitably cover all civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights of every child:

• Right to Survival:
• Right to Protection:
• Right to Participation:
• Right to Development:

 

Protection of Woman rights

Women's empowerment is the process in which women expand and recreate what it is that they can be, do, and accomplish in a circumstance that they previously were denied. Women feel empowered when they can do the things that are supposed to be only for men, you know? It breaks boundaries, it's liberating, and it's empowering when you feel like.'Well, I can do that, too.’Empowering women leads to a more inclusive growth of society and the nation. In Indian mythology, woman is an incarnation of Shakti, the goddess of power. We believe women empowerment is vital to our development and the progress of humanity is incomplete without the empowerment of women. Indian women continue to lead in different walks of life and are vehicles of changes and instruments of India’s transformations.

The Constitution of India has affirmed that the human rights of a women are very much alive and kicking whether she is married or not and deserve recognition and acceptance. Now policy makers, law enforcement, the judiciary and others must take concrete steps to implement this and ensure women and girls their human and legal rights. This should translate into respecting the bodily autonomy of every woman and girl, including destigmatising and decriminalizing sexual activity amongst adolescents and upholding their reproductive rights.

The women being heard now have a certain visibility and influence. They are guaranteed to be heard by the media and social media. Harassment is not about sex, it is about inequality at work, about erasing a women’s worth, her mind, her competence and reducing her to a body. And a women who do climb high in their professional worlds are not exempt from these patterns of domination, even if they personally escaped them. India had its own reckoning a few years ago, after the Delhi gang rape, for a brief and vivid season, the question of women’s freedoms, their full rights, their autonomy occupied public discourse. We saw the extent of sexual violence, the fear of it, the way it is reinforced by institutional hostility and popular culture, the way it cramps women’s autonomy. Laws on rape were amended, police reforms were promised. But real change has not been easy or linear, as the later life of those very laws makes clear. Social norms remain stubborn, power has a male form. In some ways, our freedoms have retreated since, as conservative forces became ascendant in India. The women’s movement has been building strength, deepening and diversifying for decades. The quest for justice zigs and zags – Bhanwari Devi, the Rajasthani social worker who was gangraped, is still to get justice, but because of her, Indian women now have a law against sexual harassment at work place. The Nirbhaya moment may have gone, but the constituency it mobilised remains awake and vigilant. Women’s rights are championed instrumentally and insincerely, as in the triple talaq cause. There is a greater attention to the complexity of domination, how womenhood is one axis, caste, class and race are others and how feminism must include them to be meaningful. More women are speaking up, boosting each other’s signal, pushing back against the norms, giving precise words to male entitlement with terms like mansplaining, manterrupting, manels etc. We don’t have to delude ourselves about the power and resilience of those we confront. The fact of inequality continues to distort everything in a women’s life. There may be exceptions, but the rule remains.

Suhanubhav is another step of this journey.