‘Minors not to be sent to asylums’
In an effort to protect the rights of minors, the government has decided to prohibit authorities from sending them to mental asylums and provide for separate treatment for those suffering from communicable diseases.
Union law and justice ministry has proposed to amend the Juvenile Justice (care and protection of children) Act to curb discrimination against minors and to provide for the care and protection of children. The proposal states that instead of sending such children to mental asylums, the authorities will need to ensure their proper treatment and they would not be allowed to be abandoned in asylums.
The proposed law also states that terms such as “mental disorder” should not be used while referring to children.
The ministry has also advised removal of a section from the JJ Act, which provided for a juvenile suffering from any communicable diseases to be treated separately.
“Section 48 (2) which states that a juvenile or a child found to be suffering from leprosy, sexually transmitted disease, Hepatitis B, open cases of tuberculosis and such diseases and is of unsound mind, should be dealt with separately through referral services, shall be omitted,” it adds.
Sources stated that the law also proposes to make it mandatory on the part of authorities to provide proper health care for minors suffering from diseases. “If it appears to the competent authority that any juvenile or child kept in a special home, is mentally ill or addicted to alcohol or drugs, leading to behavioural changes, he may be sent to a psychiatric hospital or nursing home,” the proposed amendment states.
As of now, the act provides for such children to be removed to be kept at other centres for the entire period of their stay at the juvenile home. The act, which came into being in 1986, was earlier amended in 2000.
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