The National Human Rights Commission organized a two day National Consultation to assess human rights situation in the country in New Delhi from 12th-13th August, 2016. During the discussions, several suggestions emerged to bring improvements in the civil, political, economic, social, cultural rights as well as the rights of women and children.
Prior to this, the Commission had already completed six regional consultations covering all states on the issues of rights. A report, based on these wide consultations, will be prepared and submitted to the Human Rights Council mandated by the United Nations to hold the Universal Periodic Review of Human Rights situations in all 193 member countries.
Inaugurating the National Consultation, Justice Shri H.L. Dattu, Chairperson, NHRC said that we must discuss the fundamental issues of governance, affecting the day to day life of the people, find out the draw backs and try and show the way forward. We must give away this notion that with time, everything would fall in place and move on making only hollow promises. He said that if the issues are addressed priority wise, many problems affecting human rights at micro or sectoral level may not even arise so as to need further legislation or rules to fix them.
He said that legislation, rules and regulations for everything do not always solve problems, rather too many of them create confusion in the minds of gullible masses and tend to compound the problems. The general good of the people is decided by the minimum basic needs and amenities available to them as the absence thereof becomes a reason for violation of their fundamental and human rights.
He said that the problem, perhaps, lies more with the inconsistency in the implementation mechanism of several welfare measures due to the lack of awareness among the both, the beneficiary and benefactor, at almost all levels of society and even hierarchy in government machinery.
The NHRC Chairperson said that the concerned governments, ministries and departments under them must involve philanthropists and Corporates as part of their social responsibility in running mass scale awareness campaigns on all aspects of public life and good in the interest of clean and transparent governance.
However, Justice Dattu said that the UN mandated Universal Periodic Review should not be so much about putting holes as much as it should be about plugging holes in the scheme of things introduced and implemented for the cause of general good.
Earlier, Shri N.C. Saxena, Supreme Court appointed Commissioner on Right to Food, pointed out short-comings in the implementation of various welfare programmes and said that funds allocated to different ministries are not being utilized, as a result the Government is reducing them in each subsequent year.
During the discussions, it was recognized that whereas in some key areas of human rights concern, though various new laws have been enacted and amendments have been made in the existing ones, a little more is required to be done to either amend the available provisions or remove the inherent contradictions therein. It was also felt that training, awareness and sensitization programmes about legal provisions for common people as well as for those working at various levels in government machinery need to be organised on a regular basis.
Some of the significant suggestions were as follows:-
1. Do away with separate age limits for children to extend them entitlements under child rights and their trial for criminal offences ;
2. Do away with provisions under Section 377 and 375 IPC, which are contradictory to each other as acts that are noncriminal under Section 375 IPC remain criminal under Section 377 IPC;
3. Work towards having a uniform civil code from women's perspective to enable them to have equal rights irrespective of their religion to ensure a secular justice system;
4. Work towards providing clean potable water to all the people in the wake of the serious challenges arising out of water contamination and the presence of fluoride and arsenic in it;
5. Increase expenditure on health up to 3% of the GDP;
6. Review National Food Security Act to make it more effective and inclusive in conformity with inter-national convention and Supreme Court directions;
7. Amend rules under the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007, to ensure that all disputes concerning their maintenance are settled within a period of 90 days;
8. Each Scheduled Tribes community should be brought to the centre of socio economic development;
9. Clarify the plan of action or providing 25 million houses by 2022;
10. Work towards time bound implementation of Right to Education Act with regulation to check private schools and to bring the new education policy within the frame work of RTE Act;
11. Replicate "Operation Smile" and "Operation Muskan", launched by the Union Home Ministry, in different parts of the country with a dedicated team to find out missing children;
12. Ratify the Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance signed by the Government of India in 2007;
13. Introduce expeditiously a new Prevention of Torture Bill as the old bill lapse on dissolution of the 15th Lok Sabha;
14. Strengthen Criminal Justice System Machinery to clear pending cases and overcrowding of jails;
15. Strengthen Anti Human Trafficking Units by setting them up in all districts;
16. Work on the portability of identity certifying mechanism to ensure the migrants labourers are not excluded from the benefits of welfare schemes.
The NHRC Member Shri S.C. Sinha, Secretary General, Shri S.N. Mohanty, J.S.(T&R) Shri Kochher, JD(R) Dr. Savita Bhakhry, Core Group members and Special Rapporteurs, representatives from the Union Ministries of External Affairs, Home Affairs, Women & Child Development, Health & Family Welfare, NITI Aayog, NGOs participated in the discussions.