Protection of / prevention from violence against children: the role of educational system.

Protection of / prevention from violence against children: the role of educational system. The experience of violence in childhood impacts lifelong on mental health and well-being. The National Crime Records Bureau 2019 data tells us that every hour, 6 cases of child abuse occur, 57 percent of cases of sexual abuse are perpetrated by close family members. Globally, it is estimated that upto 1 billion children aged 2-7 years, have experienced physical, sexual or emotional violence or neglect (UNICEF,2020). The protection of child against violence and prevention mechanisms in our country is in very nascent stage and is currently struggling to adapt child-friendly procedure and inculcating various awareness building programes in different service sectors . There is tremendous need to inculcate new programes in educational sector to develop social and emotional skills to handle such problems at the very base level. It is the time to stop the harmful system to breed further. The study comes at a crucial time when a good number of people are showing interest to know more about the mechanisms meant for preventing and protecting children from abuse and violence. In this study some evidence based mechanisms i.e. ‘respectful relationship education’ (Australia) and ‘ happiness curriculum’(India) will be discussed. The discussion will throw some light of how social emotional learning(SEL) helps to develop skills of understanding the right communication, to identify wrong attitude, behavior, act etc and handling the signals of various situations breeding violence before it occurs. Authours : Dr. Sampa Sinha Psychiatric Social Worker, Dept. of PSW, IHBAS, Delhi Dr. Deepak Kumar Professor & Head Dept. of Psychiatry, IHBAS, Delhi Correspondence e-mail: sinhasampa25@rediffmail.com/sampa_in2000@yahoo.co.in