Making the Invisibles Visible

CiSS are invisible in policymaking. There is no enumeration of CiSS by government. These unaccounted children are prone to trafficking, sexual abuse and exploitation, and are often pushed into robbery, begging, and other anti-social activties. Hence, it is critical for the Government to ensure CiSS are not only accounted for in its population database but they also be provided with all the services for their well-being as per the Constitution of India, National Policy for Children 2016, UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to which India is a signatory.

the project will provide legal identity to CiSS by registering them through a mobile app and helping them appear before the Child Welfare Committee. The CWC after the due diligence process will help CiSS obtain identity who are found without it. This identity will help CiSS become visible in government records and make them access various government schemes. 

According to UN estimates there are upto 150 million street children in the world. There are 153 million children worldwide who are orphans (UNICEF). The plight of street children is similar across Asia, America, Europe and Africa. In the developed world, there are some provisions for care and protection of CiSS. However, when it comes to CiSS enumeration or database, the ignorance of Government is clearly evident in their policy, planning, and budgeting specific to CiSS across the developed and developing countries. In India too there is no official statistics on number of CiSS, the magnitude of the problem is not clearly known (Spotlight on #theinvisibles, Save the Children report, 2019). This massive problem is exacerbated by a consistent neglect for decades and has caused significant damage to such children’s childhood and adversely affected their adulthood. Thus, it is imperative for the Government across the countries to take notice of CiSS, enumerate them and provide them identity. Aspects like children to have access to ID, birth registration, prevention from violence, etc., are well articulated in SDGs (esp. SDG16) with an agenda of Leave No One Behind. Thus CiSS provided with identity will help them live life with respect and dignity. 

Based on our half a decade work with CiSS, we found that they are not able to access health and nutrition, protection, education and development services. Further, they are invisible in policy decisions as there is no data on them to develop informed and need based polcies and programme. The proposed project will be on an IT enabled platform that would capture relevant information on CISS. Mapping of CiSS will be done though a mobile application with the help of all stakeholders (Police, Childline, roadside kiosks, hawkers etc). Experienced volunteers will be trained on the use of app and its functioning. They will be trained on Do’s & Don’ts of interacting with CiSS while collecting information on the street and at Child Care Institutions. The entire exercise of profile creation will be conducted in collaboration with Department of Women and Child Development (DWCD). All the gaps in profiling of CiSS, if any, will be addressed by DWCD with its Child Protection Unit. After identifying those gaps (e.g. Identity, no shelter, disability, drop-out, out of school, substance abuse, delinquency) the child will be presented before the Child Welfare Committee and a social worker will be assigned the responsibility of a child. 

CiSS will be provided with an identity document after they will be presented before the CWC. It will take cognisance of their vulnerability and help them with suitable rehabilitation. The mapping of CiSS through mobile application will help in understanding the locations in the city that CiSS come to and their pathways to survival on the street. It may help concerned authorities including NGOs like Save the Children in planning their timely rescue, rehabilitation or repatriation to their families including connecting them to the CWC. This may also assist policy makers/concerned authorities in understanding the need for homes for such children in the city. 

This app would capture relevant information about CiSS that would be used to develop policy, provide entitlements and track the welfare of CiSS. This platform will work like a safe and secure internet/mobile based banking system for any individual. Department of Women and Child Development will host this Data, which is the apex Government entity for the welfare of children at the State level. Based on this information, DWCD along with its Child Protection Unit will plan and track interventions. This intervention is unique, as it will capture the identity status of CISS without compromising the privacy of these children. This data would be validated by periodic ground surveys. It will help Urban Local Bodies along with DWCD to assess the demand and supply gap in Child Care Institutions and their specific need for care and protection. This will help them in policy, planning and budgeting for the specific needs of these children for their well-being and make them an integral part of the city

An android and tablet based data feeding system will be developed to collect relevant information on CiSS. The mapping and data of CiSS will be collected by trained and experienced enumerators. Identified CiSS will be presented before the CWC. During this process the CWC will inquire and check (e.g. Biometric scan for Aadhar) whether the CiSS have any government recognised ID. In case, if they do not have one, then the CWC will instruct the DCPU to ensure that identified CISS be provided with identity i.e. Aadhar Card, PAN Card, Birth Certificate, Certificate from Educational Institute, Certificate from MP/MLA, Certificate from Gazetted Officer.

Recently Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, GoI launched Mobile App of PM SVANidhi  to bring Microcredit facility for street vendors at their door steps. These informal street vendors like street children are invisible to policy makers. MoHUA under the Street Vendors Act mapped the street vendors across India alongwith their Aadhar IDs. This features include vendor search in the survey data, e-KYC of applicants, processing of applications, and real time monitoring.   

Save the Children envisions that there should be no rough sleeping for CiSS in India’s urban centers. Our goal is that CiSS be provided with identity and it will help them access services that are essential for their overall physical and mental development and they live their life with respect and dignity. There is no enumeration of CiSS by government entity. Such children land up in street due to variety of reasons that includes death of parents, abandonment, abuse/violence by the caregiver, loss of home, poverty, etc.

One of the major barriers to designing policy interventions for CiSS is the complete lack of data on them. The lack of a legal identity severely limits what they can achieve in life (Spotlight on #theinvisibles, Save the Children report, 2019). Due to no identity document they cannot access formal education; cannot access any government welfare schemes; health services are inaccessible to them; and no legal protection or right as they are not in government’s records.

Thus, it is imperative for the Government across the countries to take notice of such children, enumerate them and provide identity to address their plight.

The Draft National Urban Policy Framework 2018 mentions on provisioning of basic services along with housing and shelter to urban poor and deprived including ‘street connected children’. This target group is also a key focus area of Government of India’s ongoing flagship urban programmes such as Smart Cities, National Urban Liveihood Mission etc. Recognising CiSS, girls and boys, with identity will help investment on them which will help build them as knowledge workers for their cities. And it will also help India achieve its 2030 agenda with inclusive and child-friendly urban development.

India has a well-developed ID system through Aadhar. Our solution will help CiSS access the identity system. It will provide them visibility in the government records. It will help the ULBs and DWCD to plan and design specific (age/gender appropriate) interventions for them so that they live a life of dignity and respect.

Our work of mapping, identifying and presenting CiSS to CWC will complement the Government of India’s effort of providing Aadhar/Identity to its population. This will ensure that there will not be any CiSS girl or boy invisible in the government records. This data would be validated by periodic ground surveys. CiSS Identity data will help Urban Local Bodies along  with DWCD to assess the demand and supply gap in Child Care Institutions. This proposed solution will help policy makers in planning and budgeting for the specific needs of these girls and boys. 

Mobile application would be user-friendly as it would help data collectors to collect information from CiSS with ease. The mobile application would also help analyze information on the number of CISS who do not have an identity document, those who have received an identity document and the status of them having accessed any government social protection scheme or service.

The proposed solution will be built on open source architecture. Entire application framework will be designed in a manner that it can be integrated with other platform and application. API integration feature will be available to the right authority/party who is supposed to access/process the available data/information. Applicable data protection framework under Indian IT Act will be ensured for protection of data collected, processed and shared through this proposed solution.  

Application will be developed on Android and IOS platform and will be capable to run on all versions with low bandwidth availability. Application will have feature to work in offline mode so that later data can be synchronized with server when device gets connected with internet.    

In the initial phase, the proposed prototype will cater to 20,000 to 25,000 children in Hyderabad City, Telangana State in Southern part of India. Hyderabad is the sixth most populous urban agglomeration of India. Hyderabad city is governed by Municipal Corporation which comes under Hyderabad Metropolitan Region. The total population of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (Municipal Corporation + Outgrowth) in 2011 is 3,718,651. Total number of slum households in Hyderabad city and its out growth numbers 507,396 in which population of 2,287,014 resides.

As per Census 2011, total 4,948 families live on footpath or without any roof cover in Hyderabad district of Andhra Pradesh. Total Population of all who lived without roof at the time of Census 2011 numbers to 17,903. There are 13 orphanage homes in GHMC as per Census 2011.

Based on Save the Children (2016) study “Life on the Street: Street children survey in 5 cities: Lucknow, Mughalsarai, Hyderabad, Patna and Kolkata-Howrah” there are around 28,560 children in the Hyderabad city.

We will scale up this prototype to cities of Telangana State and also neighboring Andhra Pradesh State (3 to 5 years). During the scaling up of this prototype solution, we will demonstrate the success of this prototype at the National Level to the concerned Ministries and Think Tanks (like National Institute for Transforming India (Niti Aayog), National Institute of Urban Affairs, etc.) and advocate with them for scaling of this solution to other cities and towns across India. 

CiSS is one of the five programmatic focus intervention in the organization for current country programme strategy 2019-22. In partnership with National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), Save the Children is finalizing the second version of Standard Operating Procedure for Care and Protection of CiSS. This will support this particular innovative pilot. By next year we will expand this pilot to another city to establish CiSS identity model prototype. From year 3 to 5 this will be shared with national and state government to replicate across urban locations and SC will provide technical support in implementing this innovative piece. The Identity to CiSS in cities and towns across country will make them visible in the policy domain. By doing this intervention, CiSS will be presented before the CWC they will assess CiSS vulnerabilities and provide the necessary support including putting them into shelter homes. From the longer term perspective this intervention will be transformative for CiSS as they will be provided with identity, home, education, health and skilling services. This will eventually help them grow-up as a responsible citizen and pursue their life with dignity. In a recent study ‘Spotlight on #Invisibles’ by Save the Children (2019) it has been reported that children placed in homes have better educational attainment and outcomes. Thus, the identity to CiSS means avenues for better opportunities for development and living with dignity.

There might be delay in collaboration with nodal government agency to mainstream the application. The inter-departemental coordination is quite a challenge esp. DWCD, ULBs, as they are different entities in many cities.

CiSS is an extremely mobile population thus tracing and identifying them will be time-taking. Reluctance from CiSS to share information about themselves due to reasons such as they are runaway from home, working on the streets, substance abuse, etc. They may not reveal their correct age, address, etc. There maybe a possibility that they may be hesitant to appear before the CWC.

Possibly interference from the crowd gathering while interviewing the CiSS. There are specific timings of availability of CiSS that may lead to multiple visits by the enumerator to reach out to them. Although we are suggesting a Social Worker to be provided to each child in helping him or her to be presented before the CWC. But the resource availability and allocation for the same will be considered only after assessing the ground situation. 

The process for Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with DWCD will start parallel to the prototype design right at the inception of the project. Trained/experienced enumerators will carry out mapping of CiSS with handheld devices. Enumerators will be trained on app and Do’s & Don’t’s while intercating with CiSS. The field enumeration exercise with hand held devices will ensure that male enumerators will interview male CiSS and female will interview female CiSS.  Save the Children will make sure that the CiSS identified will be informed about the entire process and purpose of identity. Language is critical while collecting information from CiSS. Thus, local enumerators who are fluent in local language will be recruited. For Social Workers, Save the Children will mobilise trained and experienced Social Workers (in adherence to relevant government guidelines) with exposure to psycho-social support to children to assist identified CiSS in the entire process of getting identity. 

Manish Thakre- Full time staff

Avinash Singh- Full time staff

Siddharth Pande- Full time staff

Pranab Chanda- Full time staff

Anindit Roy Chowdhury- Full time staff

Save the Children had done enumeration of 200,000 children across 10 cities in four States from 2018 to 2020. We have strong presence in 12 States across India through well-equipped offices and experienced staff. Our team including partner NGOs team has experience of mapping, documenting and linking CiSS to Aadhaar and other government recognised identities. We are a strategic partner to National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights with whom we are developing the Standard Operating Procedure for Care and Protection of Children in Street Situation (revised version 2).  We have forged strategic partnership with local municipalities including DWCD for mapping and providing ID to the CiSS by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). We are the largest Child Rights NGO in the country that has amplified the agenda of invisibles in mainstream. We have undertaken many CiSS enumeration and their situation analysis studies in different cities of India. 

We will be partnering with leading IT solution provider-cum-analytical company who will help us in creating the mobile app for mapping of CiSS. Our internal IT team will closely work with IT partner and manage overall technical oversight and troubleshooting for the project. IT team will also ensure ensure data privacy protocols in compliance to Indian IT Act and any other software/hardware requirements/license, etc. for ensuring smooth implementation completion of the project.

Business model is to provide technical assistance to government and direct assistance to the most marginalized.  Organization income depends on external grants.

Save the Children has been in existence since 100 years now, its solid work on the ground ensures a steady stream of funding, this would continue well into the future.

The solution has raised funding from the Dutch Post Code lottery.

The solution seeks 120,000 USD in grant form.

The budget for 2020 will be 60,000 USD