BENGALURU: The child helpline number 1098 will be discontinued within another week. 1098 is easy for children to remember. It is in reverse numerical order, quite convenient to call in times of trouble.
Now this helpline will be officially merged with 112 under the Ministry of Home Affairs and will be manned by Karnataka Police instead of child care NGOs in the state. Although the government has proposed to make the move positive, experts in the sector fear that many sensitive cases may go unreported.
NGOs in the city told TNIE that the helpline in Rajyajalli receives about a thousand calls a day. These calls are made by children, relatives and sometimes activists. Chitra Anchan, Program Director, Childline India Foundation (CIF), Karnataka, said children are used to calling 1098, our staff are trained to bond with them to solve their problems. We have to wait and see how delicately the new government will speak and how it will act. Child helplines should not be influenced by police officers, he said.
Forward to 112: After June 19, calls made to 1098 will be forwarded directly to 112. From there you have to enter automatic selection. Callers need to press 1 for police assistance, 2 for traffic police, 3 for cyber police and 4 for enquiry.
Child rights experts are of the opinion that people are afraid to report 112 to the police. Child Rights Trust (CRI) executive director Vasudev Sharma said that when we receive calls from children we access the helpline 24×7 and hopefully the police will be able to do the same. With the calls, there were many empty calls and the NGOs made sure to call the number back to check if everything was fine.
Child labor cases: NGOs say the major cases of child labor in Karnataka are found in north Karnataka, where children run away from their homes and come to the city to find work, identified by teams at railway stations and bus stands. Other cases are from states like West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Rajasthan.
Anjaneya, coordinator of the Association for Promoting Social Action (APSA), says the helpline in the city receives about 130 calls every day regarding domestic cases. We help them at every step, from emergency services to rehabilitation centers. Now with the merger it may not be effective, he said.
He described how two young girls aged between 12 and 15 were rescued in Whitefield last month. These girls come from Orissa to Bangalore and work as domestic help. Minors are not allowed to step out of their homes. Most cases go unreported, leaving NGOs aware of the problem only when someone notices it.