Odisha Police and NLUO Organise 2-Day Child Protection Training

The Crimes Against Women and Children’s Wing (CAW & CW), Odisha Police, in collaboration with Centre for Child Rights (CCR) of National Law University Odisha (NLUO) launched a two-day training programme on “Essentials of Child Protection” for frontline cadre police personnel of Odisha and officers of the Crime Against Women and Children’s Wing (CAW & CW) on 18th and 19th May 2026 in Bhubaneswar.

The programme is aimed to strengthen child-friendly approaches within the police force and enhance institutional understanding of child rights, child protection laws, mental health interventions, adverse childhood experiences’ framework and how that influences children coming in conflict with law, child victims of crimes and children in need of care and protection, and field-level protocols necessary for responding to children in vulnerable situations. The training has been conceptualised as an interdisciplinary and practice-oriented input that combines legal understanding with psychosocial perspectives and operational experiences with special focus on the first responders in the police cadre at district level and the supervisory cadre at the state level.

The first day of the training, held at the Convention Hall, Police Bhawan, Bhubaneswar, trained 131 personnel, comprising of 24 Additional Superintendents of Police, 38 Deputy Superintendents of Police, 65 Inspectors, 3 Sub-Inspectors, and 1 Assistant Sub-Inspector.

The second day of the programme is scheduled at the Conference Hall of the CAW & CW headquarters, Rasulgarh, Bhubaneswar. It will focus on the supervisory cadre of the CAW & CW. representatives from the Departments of Women and Child Development, Labour Department and School and Mass Education of the Odisha government.

The inaugural session on Day One featured presidential address by Shri Vinaytosh Mishra, IPS, Director General of Police, Criminal Investigation Department, Crime Branch, Odisha, spoke on the occasion calling for the police personnel to use their own children, their best interests as the reference point for every child the police deals with. Smt. Shyni S, IPS, ADGP CAW & CW, Odisha Police, led the conceptualization of the training program alongwith Prof. Biraj Swain, Chief Minister’s Chair Professor-cum-Director of the CCR, NLUO. Focus is intentionally on understanding intersectional issues besides focusing on JJ ACT, 2012 and POCSO and the range of child protection and enabling laws.  Speaking at the session, Smt Shyni S located the challenges Odisha faced and her vision for the training with sensitizing the frontline and supervisory police cadre, to develop the understanding of treating every child in the investigation process with utmost care and sensitivity. She highlighted how Odisha was taking a serious approach and reporting every missing child report as kidnapping and putting the full force and seriousness of the force to rescue the children and connect them to their families. She also highlighted how there is 100% case disposal for children coming in conflict with law (CICL), in contrast with barely 20% conviction rate for adults committing crime.

Prof. Dolly Jabbal, Dean (Academics), NLUO delivered the welcome address.

Technical sessions were opened by Prof. Swain, who took the participants through the fundamentals of child protection and its location in the universe of child rights, tracing the historical and policy evolution while underlining the importance of inter-sectoral programming and intervention. The session particularly emphasised that child protection must not be reduced merely to a law-and-order issue, but must be approached with a rights-based and life-chances’ lens. She also highlighted how the mainstream media reported more of violent crimes, sexual offences in a brazen attention seeking effort, but neglected the everyday deprivations that children faced like health, education, nutrition etc. And the percentage of media space going to children and child rights reportage in news space was barely 3-4% while the percentage of the children’s population is 37% as per the last census done in 2011.

The second technical session was conducted by eminent child rights global champion and longtime CCR collaborator, Shri Amod Kanth, IPS, former Director General of Police of Goa and Arunachal Pradesh and Founder Chairman of the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights. Shri Amod Kanth underlined the definition of children across all child protections legislations and the sections and ways to apply the same too. The session focussed on the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, and other important child protection legislations including the Prevention of Child Marriage Act, 2006 and the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016. The session took a deep dive into the JJ (C and P) Act, 2015, the legal framing of the law, how it shaped application and gaze and practice of the personnel. It was a very interactive day where current personnel also shared their everyday challenges. He also highlighted how the media reportage gave away identity, identifier narrative of the child (survivor of a crime or CICL) adversely affecting the life chances of the child and stigmatising the child.

The third technical session was led by Prof Kalpana Purushothaman, former member of the Bangalore Urban Juvenile Justice Board and Adjunct Professor at the Indian Institute of Psychology and Research (IIPR), Bangalore. She trained the participants on recognising symptoms of distress amongst children, recognising and providing care and support in case of mental health problems and the absolute determinant role of the adverse childhood experiences (ACE) played in shaping children and their future. She shed light on protocols for engaging with children in distress, therapeutic approaches, adverse childhood experiences, trauma-informed policing, and the importance of self-care among child protection professionals, especially police personnel dealing with sensitive child-related cases. Prof Kalpana Purushothaman urged the participants to focus on children’s life stories instead of their crime stories, took the trainees through trauma informed policing and rights-based policing and honing listening skills rather than interrogation only approach.

The fourth technical session focussed on the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, including procedural protocols, the role of support persons, and emerging challenges in implementation. The session was conducted by Dr. Swagatika Samal and Dr. Pradipta K. Sarangi of the Chief Minister’s Chair Professor Team at CCR-NLUO.

The second day of the programme will focus on strengthening institutional coordination and monitoring mechanisms among state-level supervisory cadre officers and specialized units engaged in child protection.

Crime Against Women and Children Wing (CAW & CW) is a specialised division of the Odisha Police under the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and Crime Branch. The wing is dedicated to ensuring the safety, dignity and legal rights of women, children and vulnerable groups across the state. It also addresses the anti-human trafficking efforts of the State in Odisha. It is led by Shrimati Shyni S, IPS, Additional Director General of Police, Odisha Police

Centre for Child Rights (CCR) is the oldest centre of National Law University Odisha (NLUO), second oldest child rights and law centre in any NLU in India and is led by the only chairprofessorship on child rights in the country (Law and non-Law University included). It was inaugurated by Justice Deepak Mishra of Hon’ble Supreme Court and then Visitor to the NLUO, Justice Pradip Kumar Mohanty, then acting Chief Justice of Orissa High Court and Chancellor of NLUO, Justice Sanju Panda, then Chair of the Juvenile Justice Committee of Orissa High Court, Shri Saswat Mishra, IAS, then Secretary cum Commissioner of the Women and Child Development Department of Government of Odisha. Prof Srikrishna Deva Rao was the then Vice Chancellor of NLUO and Prof Dolly Jabbal was the Registrar in-charge. CCR is a research, teaching, policy, practice and advocacy centre dedicated to all aspects of child rights. It is led by Prof Biraj Swain, Chief Minister’s Chair Professor cum Director.