``Children are not supposed to be arrested, they are not criminals. How could the media splash her snaps all over? She should not have been `charged' with `murder' in the first place,'' said an enraged Rita Panicker, who heads a non-governmental organisation, The Butterflies.

Panicker was speaking at a two-day `sensitisation meet for media professionals on issues concerning children,' organised by the National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development (NPCCD) and the Centre for Media Studies.

``The Juvenile Justice Act designed for care, protection and rehabilitation of children prohibits their arrest. They should be presented before the Juvenile Justice Board and handled more carefully. Because such victimisation would leave a scar, with which they would have to live throughouttheir lives,'' she added.

The girl had killed the man in self-defence when he tried to rape her. Her father has also been arrested for tampering with the evidence -- the weapon used for the murder.

Quoting another example, Panicker said the Chennai edition of a newspaper recently carried a photograph of a minor girl who was raped and was pregnant. ``This is atrocious. Aren't there any code of ethics?'' she asked.

``Such depictions should be treated as human rights violations,''said Rashmi Choudhury, deputy secretary, Department of Women and Child Development. ``A child is victimised again by this exposure. The media first sensationalise the cases of child abuse and then forget about them. No follow-ups are done. There should be proper investigations into these problems.

Calling upon the media to evolve a self-regulatory mechanism, Choudhury said it should not hound the victims, rather focus on the issues and on what should be done to ameliorate the problems.

Touching on a critical area of concern,she said, trafficking of children has become a growing menace. Criticising the media for its failure to follow up a story, Panicker said, ``a report of 100 children `escaping' from a children's home was given wide coverage, but later no one bothered to find out why they fled and what steps were taken to improve their situation.''