Why regulating day-cares won't guarantee your child's safety

The Gurgaon day-care shocker that all of you have probably heard or read about, was indeed every parent's worst nightmare come true. For those of you who haven't, a three-year-old girl had to have her thumb amputated because of an accident that took place at a day-care called Cherub Angel in Gurgaon.

In a post on Facebook, which has gone viral since it was posted on February 9, the mother, Shivani P Sharma writes about the series of events that took place - it seems the little girl's finger came in a door which another child shut by mistake - and alleges extreme neglect by the owners of the day-care. She has filed an FIR and wants to create awareness so that no other child has to suffer this fate.

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The scary fact of the matter is that day-cares, crèches and even playschools in India are not regulated.

Unlike schools, they are not required to have an affiliation to a board and no mandatory or regular checks are conducted on them. The long and short of it is that there is no deterrent; they have no license to lose, because they don't even have a license in the first place.

A casual search on the internet will show you that starting a day-care in India is relatively easy and being touted as a good business opportunity thanks to the growing trend of working parents, nuclear families and the demand for caregivers.

One website I went to (startadaycare.in) states, "This is turning out to be a good investment if you are looking at a business perspective. If you have a space on your own, it is desired to spruce it up with low investment teaching aids, a good radiant ambience and interior that is child friendly. Most often, no or few permissions are required to open a day-care in India."

Babycenter.in, while mentioning an exhaustive check-list of what parents should look for, also rues the fact that there is little or no monitoring. "Ideally all crèches must be registered. Unfortunately this is usually not the case. Do speak to the manager of the crèche to clarify this issue."

I spoke to the owner of a reputed day-care in Gurgaon which has been operational for seven years, and she confirmed that there is no regulatory body that encompasses day-cares. Is regulating day-cares the solution?

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However, she was also sceptical about regulation and wondered if it was an ideal solution, because most of the officials she had dealt with for no objection certificates (NOCs) and other clearances in the past were only looking to make a quick buck. So, will regulation only mean more bribes?

Plus, she said, the tougher it becomes, lesser the players, which poses a genuine problem for working mothers. Her solution was to have a body that genuinely cares about children's safety and which includes various members of society including parents, so checks are not mere hogwash.

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She may have a point. In the past few years, schools, which are regulated, have also had horrific incidents. From the six-year-old who was raped by a skating teacher in a school in Bangalore in 2014, to the six-year-old who was found dead in a water tank in Ryan International School, Delhi, in January this year, it's not as if schools are havens.

For parents, the only thing they can do is heaps of research, opt for a day-care run by someone they can trust, and ensure that safety checks are in place. And lastly, pray for some professionals to enter the day-care space, and a regulatory authority to monitor the sector.

If women have to get back to the workforce, this has to be the first step in that direction.

(Courtesy of Mail Today.)