Children’s parliaments empower change within struggling, marginalised communities

M Haripriya wasn’t expecting to finish school. As the elder of two daughters of daily wage labourers, chances were she would be married off before she turned 18—like most girls in the neighbourhood slum of Korukkupettai in north Chennai.  

Until some years ago, Haripriya couldn't even stay out of home after 8 pm without anticipating a thrashing when she got back. 

"Drunk men used to linger around our street corner after sundown. My parents never wanted me to be outside late evenings," she says. Haripriya’s mother earns a living as a house help and her father works at a factory making steel buckets. But when she grew up, he spent most of what he made to buy alcohol, she says.  

However, today, Haripriya spends most of her time outside—engaging with children, persuading parents to keep them in school, stopping child marriages, and writing petitions to the local administration—to resolve civic concerns.

Since this class-12 student was elected councilor of the children’s Nagara Sabha (urban assembly) in her ward a year ago, almost every child aged between 10 and 18 years has backed her fight against rampant alcoholism and substance abuse in this neighborhood. And in the process, she has earned them all the right to safety and the freedom to move freely.

"Our children are our informers," says Haripriya. "When a parent is sending a child to buy alcohol or Kulippu (chewable tobacco), a minor is facing abuse at home or outside, or a kid is getting weed in the neighborhood, we are instantly alerted," she says. 

The nagara sabha heads in turn immediately alert their school teachers or Child Line to take action. If the problems are long-term and need discussion, they are brought up at the area level monthly meetings which local district officials also attend. “We keep following up. If we can’t reach them over phone, we go to their offices,” she says.

Growing up as leaders

Haripriya and hundreds like her in the localities of Korukkupet and Tiruvottiyur in Chennai have turned agents of change through ‘children’s parliaments’ that Arunodhaya Centre for Street and Working Children constituted in 1992. 

Social worker and executive director of the NGO, Virgil D’Sami, says the child leaders of the movement have stopped child marriages at the nick of time, performed street plays, conducted one-to-one dialogues with families, helped rescue child workers from factories, gotten street lights installed and persuaded the local administration to turn wastelands into playgrounds for children.

Children’s parliaments are a structure of and by children, representing their most pressing issues at panchayat, ward, district, state and national levels. Child members are educated by NGOs facilitating the formation of these bodies, about their rights as citizens, the legal resources available to them, how to file RTIs and petitions, and follow up with decision makers at regular intervals to ensure their demands are met.

According to UNICEF, children and youth parliaments create space for children to share problems and solutions within a progressive forum where they are all in charge. 

Through these platforms, they are trained in the art of public speaking and advocacy, which in turn helps in their personal growth. A rights-based approach as outlined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), local child protection laws, and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), has been at the core of UNICEF’s youth parliaments across the world. 

These groups have been coming up with climate-positive solutions, fighting gender-based violence and championing the rights of children with disabilities, among others. 

Social impact

Since 2017, Navjeevan Educational and Social Welfare Society Digha (NESWSD) has formed 35 children’s parliament units comprising 475 members from some of the lowest socioeconomic neighbourhoods in Bihar. The parliaments are elected after comprehensive orientation sessions with children on the Indian government and parliament system. They function at local and district levels, and the elected members are administered the oath of ministry by a local panchayat/municipal leader.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, NESWSD child parliamentarians collected donations and bought food for poor children and the elderly in their neighbourhoods. Among their most impactful interventions was to help track a 12-year-old girl from Bindtoi slum who had gone missing. The ‘Prime Minister’ of the area child parliament used his training to immediately call the child helpline, following which the girl was rescued from traffickers. 

The child parliamentarians also pushed local authorities to install a hand pump—the only source of water—at a government school in Bajitpur Digha. 

Children always have their solutions to the local social problems. They are ready to move ahead if only given a participatory role in the decision-making process, say members of NESWSD. 

“Most importantly, they have this innocuous ability to nag government authorities to meet their needs, and don’t stop until there is a resolution in sight,” says Father Edwin Maria John, one of the pioneers of children’s parliaments in India. “The authorities cannot turn them away the way they may turn adults away,” he says. “Because children are fearless and when mobilised for a cause, they are unstoppable.” 

Also, when grown-ups take an issue into law and order and governance systems, it is mediated politically, and follows a process that might get long-drawn. But when children take responsibility for the things that matter to them, they stick to their vision and don’t give up, says development sociologist Joseph Chinniraj, who has been organising children into collectives in slums and localities with nomadic communities in Thoothukudi and Madurai, under the Centre for Education, Development Action and Research (CEDAR).

“We help children identify their issues in the village such as the lack of a playground or a resource centre, which they then take to panchayat heads and grama sabha meetings," Chinniraj adds.

CEDAR is also giving journalism and film training to these children. A film shot by them made an entry into the Jaipur Film Festival last year. 

In India, Father Edwin started the first Inclusive Neighbourhood Children’s Parliament (INCP) in Kanyakumari district in the 1990s with small units of 30 children each, organised geographically according to their residential neighbourhoods. To date, this has been preserved as a best practice and its model has been replicated in 72 countries by the NGOs trained by Father Edwin and his team.     

“INCP units are deliberately kept small so that every child can sit in a single circle face-to-face and talk without a microphone,” says Father Edwin. “In such small forums—unlike in big forums —every member gets attention and recognition, and has ample opportunity to interact, be heard, perform, and lead.” 

Because INCPs are formed on the basis of neighbourhoods, they bring together children of all castes, communities and religious backgrounds to actively participate in governance. 

“Governance here translates to having direct power in the process of identifying problems and needs, discussing them, taking decisions to set them right, charting out suitable action plans, and implementing and monitoring them,” says Joseph Rathinam, international trainer, INCPs. 

Child ministers for various departments such as finance, child safety, environment, gender equality and education, are elected by children. The election is a ‘sociocratic’ process whereby every child in a unit is given responsibility for a cause with full consent. They are elected following a robust discussion of their roles and responsibilities. The parliaments are then networked by representation at village, panchayat, block, district, state and national levels. 

A star candidate of INCP is A Jayalakshmi of Singareni Colony in Hyderabad. Born to parents who are rag pickers, Jayalakshmi was elected ‘Prime Minister’ when she was in class 11. Now 18, she spends her morning collecting garbage with her parents before heading to college. She also takes after-school tuition classes for children and is preparing for Indian Administrative Services. 

After years of engaging with the local community, Jayalskhmi identified gaping holes in the anganwadi system, and in 2021, made two requests to the district Women Development and Child Welfare Department: to start anganwadis in 21 slums identified by her team, and to pilot a project providing breakfast to children in 56 slums through their local Anganwadis—both of which were approved. 

“Where I come from, people don’t aspire to do anything. They don’t believe their lives can change,” says Jayalakshmi, who won the Changemaker award in 2022, and also met Rahul Gandhi during his recent Bharat Jodo yatra. 

“But I am my biggest inspiration, and I want to spark the same confidence for change and possibility in people who are struggling the most in our communities. I have an army of children to get us there.”