HC intervenes to reunify children caught for selling pens with street vending parents

Kochi: The Kerala High Court ordered to release the North Indian children who were caught and entrusted to a children’s home for selling pens and other stationery items on the roadside to financially support their poor parents. 

Two boys aged 6 and 7 were residing in a shelter home at Palluruthy from November 29, 2022. They are the kids of street vendors from North India. Justice VG Arun demanded to release the children to their parents and asked how helping parents would turn out to be child labour. 

The parents approached the High Court with the help of lawyer Mrinal. The Child Welfare Committee expressed its doubt regarding the parenthood of the children. However, the petitioners defended this by producing the man who rented his lodge for the North Indian family. 

Ernakulam central police had nabbed the children while they were selling stationery items. The parents were not even allowed to meet the kids who were lodged at shelter homes. They were also helpless to receive any support as they had no kins here and knew little Malayalam. Fortunately, their neighbour Adv Mrinal agreed to provide legal support. 

The Child Welfare Committee requested the High Court to hand over the children to the CWC in Delhi in view of the difficulty of children to tackle the cultural difference. However, the court dismissed the request and let the children reunite with their parents. 

The court opined that the decisions taken in connection with the rights of the children should also ensure their welfare. The government has to take care of the education opportunities of such kids. 

Meanwhile, the court expressed doubts on how the parents who often migrate from place to place provide proper education to the children. The police or Child Welfare Committee cannot take the children under custody or separate them from parents, observed the court.