HPC (India) has been involved with local juvenile homes to improve the conditions of the homes and access to education. We work on improving the sexual and reproductive health of 100 young people in juvenile homes in Karnataka through workshops and podcasts.
We have successfully convinced the juvenile justice board to have SRHR training sessions as part of their rehabilitation programme. HPC also advocates to child rights groups about the importance of adolescent sexuality and agency.
Who are these girls and boys?
At present there are plenty of girls and boys who are in the juvenile institutional systems in India. Juvenile homes are supposed to be a chance for them to help attain their best selves, but hardly anyone talks about their sexual and reproductive health well being. These girls spend considerable amount of time without any support and all alone, and learn everything from these institutions who lock them away.
Most of these girls come from lower economic and social backgrounds, and have been discriminated based on their caste, class, and historical injustice.If you look at the limited data available on these girls, most of them belong to lower caste, certain minorities and have no access to any kind of economic support. Most of them come from domestically violent spaces.
They are already in juvenile homes, where they branded as the criminals, and no one wants to deal with their well being.
What we aim to do?
We are aiming to ensure that girls who become part of juvenile homes still have access to sexual and reproductive justice. They are not lost in systems, they still continue living their lives with complete access to information, so that they still flourish.
By providing them information, we want to ensure that their basket of choices does not shrink and they don’t end up in prison systems in their adult lives. We help them make correct decision.
Hidden Pockets Collective 