Locating the Process of Policy Change to Empower Youth Care Leavers as Inheritors of State Property in India

Abstract

To ensure the continuum of care to be sustainable and of participatory quality for orphaned/ abandoned children and youth without parental care or those residing in institutional care, there is an urgent requirement of policy shift and extension in the aftercare of the youth sphere. These children must be conferred with rights-based privilege and responsibilities by the federal government in the management of state resources and property as their guardians and carers. This policy and programme shift would formally recognise these youth care-leavers (YCLs) as wards of state, provide them with employment and income sources and grant them legal inheritance rights to public property. This policy reform entails provision of legal identity on the care-leavers as state's children, prior training in vocational skills, harnessing of life-skills, and management capabilities and linking them to public institutions for life beyond aftercare. The authors advocate for the states of India to widen their scope and include 'those in care of the State' as leaders and change agents in resource management through a proposed right to inheritance. This would pave the way for inclusion and equality of the marginalised and stigmatised population cohorts, in this case the YCLs, and yield demographic dividend for the country.