About ARC Network

Several Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and groups of aware citizens across the world have been raising the voice for children to get their globally accepted rights. Action for the Rights of the Child (ARC) is one such forum of NGOs from Pune, working to ensure that children get their right to education and care, and they are protected from violence, harmful work, sexual abuse, and exploitation.

A consultation on the UNCRC was held in Pune in March 1991. This resulted in the formation of ARC, which now consists of member organisations, including the agencies involved with the street child, the working child, the child in the city slums and the institutionalised child. ARC is trying to initiate change in the situation of children in especially difficult circumstances, migrant children, child beggars and other vulnerable children, through dialogue, workshops, petitions, and awareness campaigns.

History:

Action for the Rights of the Child (ARC) was set up in 1991 to bring together NGOs, funding agencies, government departments and citizens involved in working with children from the marginalised sections of society in the city of Pune. ARC was conceived as an advocacy network for child rights. The initial agenda of the network was to maintain pressure on the government of India for the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The government ratified UNCRC in the year 1992. Since then, ARC has been actively providing voice to the issues related to child labour, child education, child protection, and child participation, for the children in Pune.

ARC was also one of the founding members of the nation-wide Campaign Against Child Labour (CACL) which has had a large role to play in shaping policy and legislation around child labour.

ARC Focus Areas

    ARC is focused on issues related to child labour, child education, child protection, and child participation. ARC tries to resolve the issues through networking of NGOs in the city, advocacy with the concerned government departments, and facilitating research and documentation for assessment of the situation and finding solutions to the issues.