CHILDREN’S MANIFESTO - Translating Children's Rights Into Reality
                     CHILDREN’S MANIFESTO
Translating Children's Rights Into Reality
LOK SABHA ELECTION 2014 
Education  Health Protection
#Vote4Children
Save the Children works in 120 countries globally and across 15 states in India for children's 
rights - To inspire breakthroughs in the way the world treats children, and to achieve 
immediate and lasting change in their lives. It is determined to build a world in which every 
child attains the right to survival, protection, development and participation. We deliver 
immediate and lasting improvements to children's lives worldwide.Save the Children works for:
• A world which respects and values each child. 
• A world which listens to children and learns.
• A world where all children have hope and opportunity.
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Save the Children, India
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©2013 Save the Children
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Preface
At the beginning of the 20th century, Save the Children’s founder Eglantyne Jebb had a 
vision to achieve and protect the rights of children. Her vision has survived into the second 
decade of the 21st century.
Every child and young person has rights, no matter who they are or where they live. 
Nearly every government in the world has promised to protect, respect and fulfil these 
rights, yet they are still violated worldwide. 
Eglantyne Jebb wanted to make the rights and welfare of children a major issue around the 
world. Her 'Declaration of the Rights of the Child' was adopted by the forerunner of the 
UN, The League of Nations and inspired the current UN Convention on the Rights of the 
Child (UNCRC) an international statement on the rights of children. It's based on the 
world’s first declaration on children’s rights, written by our founder Eglantyne Jebb in 
1923.
Governments rarely prioritise children, and fail to recognise that they have rights. India 
continues to hit the headlines for our staggering statistics on all indicators relating to 
children’s well-being. India loses 14 lakh children under the age of five every year – highest 
anywhere in world; One in three children are malnourished;  80 lakh children still remain 
out of school; 126 lakh children are engaged in child labour. Children constitute 36 percent 
or a third of India’s population but these statistics reflect that we as a nation are not 
investing enough for children in our country. By ignoring children we are not only putting 
our present at peril but also our future.
Save the Children believes that if we are to lead as a nation, we must put our children first. 
In order to realize inclusive development and growth we must do much more to ensure 
children are healthy and well nourished, educated and protected. 
Issues concerning children must emerge high on political agenda and translate into 
commitments for children in our country, and together we create a nation where every 
child counts.
In the lead up to the general elections, Save the Children appeals to all the political parties 
to give significant attention to issues related to child health, education and protection.
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Why Children?
• 40% of India’s Population are children
• Children are not part of adult franchisee but they have vision and expectation
• Children are the most vulnerable from any action or inaction
• To make sure children are treated fairly and their needs are fulfilled
• Children have right to express their views in matters affecting their own lives
• Children must be protected because they are future of our nation
Who is a Child?
A child is any human being below the age of eighteen years according to United Nation 
Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC)
What are Children's Rights?
• Survival rights: include the child's right to life and the needs that are most basic to 
existence, such as nutrition, shelter, an adequate living standard, and access to medical 
services.
• Development rights: include the right to education, play, leisure, cultural activities, 
access to information, and freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
• Protection rights: ensure children are safeguarded against all forms of abuse, neglect 
and exploitation, including special care for migrant children; safeguards for children in 
the criminal justice system; protection for children in employment; protection and 
rehabilitation for children who have suffered exploitation or abuse of any kind.
• Participation rights: encompass children's freedom to express opinions, to have a 
say in matters affecting their own lives, to join associations and to assemble peacefully. 
As their capacities develop, children should have increasing opportunity to participate 
in the activities of society, in preparation for adulthood.
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Charter of Demands to Political Party
Every Child’s Right to Health and Nutrition
1. Increase the national budget allocation on health to 5 percent of GDP in keeping 
with WHO guidelines for developing countries, and ensure 100 percent utilisation of 
budgetary allocations.
2. Achieve the Millennium Development Goal# 4 of reducing child mortality levels to 
42 per 1000 births by 2015.A focused approach is needed to tackle preventable 
causes of child mortality like respiratory infections (including tuberculosis), diarrheal 
diseases, low birth weight and malnutrition.
3. Adopt and implement the Newborn Action Plan as an integral part of the National 
Health Mission. This should also include holistic approaches like Family Friendly 
Hospital Initiatives to strengthen healthcare delivery system.
4. Enact the Right to Health Bill to enable citizens’ access to basic healthcare with a 
special focus on women, children and unreached populations.
5. Increase coverage of Routine Immunisation by intensifying efforts to provide services 
to children in the 200 High Focus Districts.
6. Develop and adopt a national policy and guidelines for Human Resources for Health 
that includes increasing the number of health workers, and enhancing their impact 
through funding, equipping, capacity-building and role rationalisation. Fill the huge 
shortfall in the number of required health workers by ensuring at least 23 health 
workers per 10,000 population, which is the WHO norm. States should take 
cognizance of currently employed contractual staff and develop a policy to regularize 
health workers.
7. Establish an independent, convergent body that will anchor nutrition at the national 
level, develop a national nutrition policy, and issue orders for conducting a 
comprehensive periodic survey on nutrition to track progress in eliminating 
malnutrition. Establish Nutrition Missions in all states with high levels of malnutrition.
8. Effectively implement the Right to Food Act to deliver foodgrains as well as 
nutritional security at household level for all marginalised and excluded populations, 
especially pregnant and lactating women, and children.
9. Ensure effective implementation of the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) 
such that all six services are delivered – supplementary nutrition, health check-ups, 
Immunisation, nutrition and health education, preschool non-formal education and 
referral services. Also, ensure that there is adequate investment in decentralised 
planning, universal coverage and training personnel.
10. Elevate the Ministry of Women and Child Development to the status of the Cabinet 
Ministry.
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Charter of Demands to Political Party
Every Child’s Right to Education
1. Increase the budget to 6 percent of GDP for elementary education so that the RTE 
norms are achieved in all schools by 2014; streamline fund flow for effective 
utilisation of sanctioned funds.
2. Implement Grievance Redressal mechanisms, especially at block and district levels, 
define procedures for complaints, support the NCPCR/SCPCRs to enable them to 
play the role expected, and support the Panchayati Raj system in its role as the local 
authority.
3. Fill existing gap of 11,87,761teachers, restructure teacher training systems, and put in 
place well defined teachers' cadres in every state. This will require serious rethinking 
of teacher emoluments, service conditions and policies of recruitment.
4. Amend the Right to Education Act to ensure that it covers children under six and 
those in the 15-18 age group.
5. Launch special training for out-of-school children that match the actual numbers of 
1.67 million out-of-school children within the next year.
6. Institute a systematic, pan-national, transparent mechanism for concurrent review of 
the status of implementation of Right to Education Act.
7. Ensure ownership and accountability of School Management Committees (SMC) and 
Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI)s by implementing decentralised mechanisms already 
outlined in the RTE.
8. Strengthen convergence between the Ministry of Human Resource and Development 
and the Ministry of Women and Child Development on the pre-school component of 
the ICDS.
9. Ensure that state education curriculum and textbooks effectively improve children’s 
learning levels by reviewing and revising them with the inputs of experts.
10. Put in place a strong regulatory framework for private schools that is transparent and 
accountable to the citizens (read parents/public).
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Charter of Demands to Political Party
Every Child’s Right to Protection
1. Increase at least five-fold the annual budgetary allocation for the Integrated Child 
Protection Scheme (ICPS) for protection of children from abuse, neglect, exploitation 
and violence. This is critical given that children and women constitute more than 50 
percent of the country’s population.
2. Invest adequately in ensuring protection for children by: (i) implementing policies and 
programmes that protect children from abuse, violence and exploitation; (ii) investing in 
appropriate referral services for the recovery, rehabilitation and reintegration of victims 
of abuse, violence and exploitation; investing in creating a cadre of trained professional 
(iii) creating robust monitoring of implementation of child protection mechanisms, 
schemes and policies (iv) creating a proper database for child trafficking, street children, 
missing children and ensuring a fully functional newly developed child tracking system – 
‘Track child’.
3. Make Child Impact Assessment (CIA) mandatory for any development project such as 
infrastructure, industries etc that is likely to impact children.
4. Give autonomy to the NCPCR, and ensure that the selection process of members and 
Chairperson be transparent based on Paris Principles.
5. Ensure children’s voices and participation in determining and auditing all policy, 
programme and legislative matters relevant to them.
6. Constitute a Law Review Commission to examine all laws affecting children, the 
recommendations of the CRC and international good practices like Optional Protocols 
on sale of children, children in conflict etc.
7. Amend the Child Labour(Prohibition and Regulation) Act (CLPRA) to abolish all forms 
of child labour by removing the distinction between hazardous and non-hazardous 
categories of work for all children upto 18 years of age.
8. Establish children’s courts in every district.
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There can be no keener revelation 
of a society's soul than the way in 
which it treats its children.
– Nelson Mandela
India must emerge as a nation that provides equal opportunities for all children, especially 
the poorest and the most marginalized, cutting across all barriers of gender, class, caste, 
religion and ethnicity that violate the rights of children as enshrined in the Constitution 
of India and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).