Kasaragod: The Child Welfare Committee (CWC) of Kasaragod united a 16-year-old girl with her newborn daughter 20 days after the state government separated them, violating the child's right to breastmilk and the minor mother's right to nurse her daughter.

Deepti* was separated from her 90-day-old daughter because the Women and Childcare Home, managed by Kerala Mahila Samakhya Society, did not want to accommodate the infant in its home in Nileshwar, said child welfare officials.

Deepti was impregnated by her boyfriend and live-in partner Sandeep* (17). Both belong to the Koraga community, a particularly vulnerable tribe. Tulu is their mother tongue. The teenagers were living as a couple with Sandeep's family in a village on the Kasaragod-Karnakaka border.

(*Names have been changed to protect identities.)

Despite the wide network of child rights volunteers, officials, and teachers, the government came to know of the under-age live-in relationship when Sandeep's mother Lakshmi* took Deepti for a check-up at the primary health centre.

Soon, the government took away the heavily pregnant Deepti and lodged her at the Women and Childcare Home near Nileshwar in Kasaragod district.

But her experience at the childcare home has been anything but pleasant, Sandeep's mother Lakshmi told Onmanorama.

Deepti's bitter experience with Women and Childcare Home comes close on the heels of Manorama News reporting that the CWC in Malappuram district separated a 14-year-old girl from her one-and-a-half-year-old son, whom she was breastfeeding. After the report was aired on April 8, the CWC reunited the child with her minor mother, Ayesha*.

Deepti taken to the capital for childbirth, sent back alone

After a couple of weeks in the Women and Childcare Home in Nileshwar, Deepti was taken to Thiruvananthapuram for her delivery. "That's the new policy," said an official. The government wants minor pregnant girls to give birth only at the SAT Hospital, he said. SAT Hospital is a tertiary care institute at the Government Medical College inThiruvananthapuram.However, Onmanorama found the claim to be false. District hospitals, General Hospitals and Kozhikode Medical College Hospital attend to pregnancies of underaged girls.

Nevertheless, a heavily pregnant 16-year-old Deepti was made to travel nearly 600km to the state's capital from Kasaragod in December.

She gave birth to a daughter on December 28. After the birth, the mother and child were shifted to a Women and Childcare Home in the city.

On March 28, exactly three months later, Mahila Samakhya packed Deepti off to Kasaragod without her baby. "She left the home heartbroken and in tears," said an official who was privy to what happened in Thiruvananthapuram.

On April 15, Onmanorama came to know of the separation and contacted Azeera, the district coordinator of Mahila Samakhya, which runs the home near Nileshwar. She said Deepti is no longer with the childcare home in Nileshwar. "She left for childbirth and has not returned. That's all I have to say," she said over the phone.

However, Deepti has been with the childcare home since March 29, confirmed two CWC members.

And on April 14, the infant was brought from Thiruvananthapuram and admitted to Shishu Vikas Bhawan, a child adoption centre in Kasaragod. "The child was brought to the district on the order of the CWC," said Adv Mohan Kumar, chairman of Kasaragod Child Welfare Committee, the final authority on the care, protection, treatment, development, and rehabilitation of the children. On Tuesday (April 18), the CWC held a special sitting to hear out Deepti. "She told the committee that she wants the child and the CWC allowed her to take her baby to the childcare home in Nileshwar," he said.

He said a mother and her breastfeeding child should not be separated unless at the request of the mother.

A bad influence on others?

When asked why Deepti was separated from her infant, the CWC chairman said a mother and infant can be a bad influence on other young survivors of child sex abuse in the home.

"The minor survivors could have been abused by their family members. In any case, we counsel them to go for abortion if the pregnancy is safe to be terminated," he said. A young mother with an infant in hand can cloud the thinking of other survivors and that is why it is discouraged, he said.

If that is the case, the government should find a new home for the mother and infant instead of separating them, said Adv Rajeena Musthafa, who has helped at least nine mothers unite with their children in the Malappuram district.

In Deepti's case, the Kerala Mahila Samakhya Society, an organisation under the Department of Education, procured 'consent' from her saying she would need her baby only after she turned 18 years, said Adv Mohan Kumar. "But we did not accept it and wanted to hear from the girl directly. That's why we ordered the baby to be brought to Kasaragod and kept the hearing today," he said on Tuesday.

All is not well at childcare homes

Adv Musthafa, who helped Ayesha unite with her son, said Mahila Samakhya pressurised Ayesha to breastfeed her son only once a day during her stay at the Women and Childcare Home in Manjeri.

In an interview with Akshay Mohan of Manorama News, survivor Ayesha said officials of Mahila Samakhya made her sign on blank papers. "They then filled the paper saying I am ready to give up on my son. That was not true," she said.

The 'consent' sounds similar to the one Deepti gave to Mahila Samakhya.

Onmanorama's request to interview Deepti was declined by the CWC chairperson saying she is a victim of sexual abuse.

Ayesha (14), who has studied only up to class 5, was in an abusive relationship. The government came to know of her son in November 2022 and shifted the minor mother and son to the childcare home. Her father was also made an accused in the case because he did not report her pregnancy or the 'sexual assault' on his daughter.

After her paternal aunt agreed to take care of her, the CWC released her from the childcare home on April 5.

The CWC did not release her son saying she had agreed to leave him behind till she turned 18 years.

However, after Ayesha and her advocate went public, the CWC released the toddler on April 8.

'We want our granddaughter and her mother back'

Deepti used to live with her younger sister (14) and her father, who is mentally ill, in a nearby gram panchayat. Her mother married another man and left their village.

When Deepti was in Class 10 and Sandeep in Class 11, they fell in love.

Sandeep brought Deepti and her younger sister to his house and his parents accepted them. The lovers dropped out of their school.

But when the government came to know that Deepti was pregnant, they took her away in September. The younger sister was admited to a residential school, where she will join Class 9 in the next academic year.

The staff at the childcare home used to allow Deepti to speak to Sandeep and his mother over the phone once a week, they said. "I last spoke with her in the last week of December. She was crying saying they were not taking care of her or giving her proper food," said Sandeep's mother Lakshmi. Soon after that, the officials took her to Thiruvananthapuram.

"No one told us that she gave birth. We tried to know the child's gender but no one will tell us," she said.

Onmanorama visited their two-room unplastered house in the border village. One has to enter Karnataka to reach their village in Kerala.

Lakshmi (45) makes baskets and hot plate racks with wild vines for a living. Her husband Raju* (54) husks arecanuts and goes to the market to sell baskets. Sandeep and his elder brother Kannan* (27) dropped out of school and now work as coconut pluckers.

Everybody in the house wants Deepti and the baby back. The tribe's family is angry with the officials for keeping them in the dark about the girl and her child.

The family is on the wrong side of the law by allowing their underage son and the minor girl to have a sexual relationship, said a CWC member, who wished to remain anonymous. "Yet, they have a right on the baby. Maybe, they will have to wait for two years till the girl turns 18," the official said.

Meanwhile, advocate Mustafa said the CWC and Mahila Samakhya should bring transparency to their work. Tutoring inmates and getting forced consent cannot be termed as counselling, she said. "Importantly, they cannot hide behind privacy clauses and deny basic human rights to the survivors of sexual abuse," she said.

The Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child Rights and judicial officers should routinely visit these homes and interview the children in-camera to find out the conditions of the homes, she said.