Lost Childhood
By J Niti
Women's Feature Service
The situation of children was certainly not satisfactory prior to economic reforms,
but now the drastic and sudden decline in not only household incomes but also government expenditure on health, education and child-care makes the current decade more painful for many children in India.
New Delhi, (India) -- A decade after India became a signatory to the World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children, finalised at the World Summit for Children in September 1990, the country's track record on child welfare is a dismal tale of failed opportunities.
Continuous disappointments on the primary education front manifest in persistently low female enrolment and high drop out rates. Declining sex ratios, high infant mortality due to avoidable and controllable diseases, growing violence against children in homes and schools and the unchecked menace of child labour are some of the other adverse indicators that worry policymakers.
While the focus of the Eighth Five Year Plan (1992-97) was on human development through 'Advocacy, Mobilisation and Community Empowerment', the Ninth Plan (1997-2002) places the young child at the "top of the country's agenda" with "a special focus on the girl child".
However, despite many positive measures implemented by the Indian Government, violations of children's rights continue to occur. In extreme cases these take the form of child labour and sale and trafficking of children for prostitution.
According to Joseph Gathia, President of Child Labour Action Network (CLAN), a coalition of over 400 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working in the area of child rights, globalisation and the economic policies being pursued by the government are resulting in further spread of poverty and deprivation among children and other vulnerable groups. "A number of studies in the Asian region demonstrate that poverty is a necessary - but not the only - factor underlying the early entrance of children into paid or unpaid work situations," he observes.
The estimates of child workers in India vary. The official National Sample Survey of 1986 reported 17.4 million child workers while a study sponsored by the Ministry of Labour concluded that the child labour force was 44 million. Census reports have been giving a progressive decline in the number of child workers from 13.7 million in 1961 to 10.74 million in 1971 and 11.4 million in 1991.
These figures are, however, sharply contested by NGOs who say that the number of child workers is increasing. The picture is even more bleak when the millions of 'invisible' girl child workers are considered, they add.
The Centre of Concern for Child Labour (CCFCL), a Delhi-based NGO, in a recent overview of this social malaise, says that child labour is involved in the manufacture of several export items. For instance, leather and leather goods account for 5.4 per cent of exports worth US $1.58 billion. About 15 per cent of the total labour force in this industry is made up of children below 14 years.
Gem and jewellery too are exported on a large scale. Though no estimates of child labour in this industry are available, in Jaipur (Rajasthan) alone, gem polishing units engage roughly 13,000 children as per government records. Child labour is also rampant in handicrafts including handmade carpets with an estimated 70,000 to 125,000 child workers engaged in carpet weaving, says the CCFCL report.
Brassware manufacturing is another area that involves child labour. A survey by the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) has identified over 20,000 child workers in the brassware industry. Child labour is also extensively involved in the collection of herbal medicinal plants, often as part of family labour, while the fishing industry employs a sizeable number of children. There are many other areas where child labour is used, adds the report.
The Government has responded suitably in the wake of such denouements. Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, the Human Resource Development Minister, recently announced that a National Commission for Children would be set up to look into the problems of children and find solutions to them. A country report about the status of children in India in the past decade has also been promised.
Courtesy : UNICEF
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Observing that 21 per cent of the children in the developing world live in India and most of them belong to poor families suffering from malnutrition and illiteracy, the Minister said that these children require immediate health and nutritional attention besides psychological, social and educational support.
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The Minister's comments assume significance in the light of the State of the World's Children Report of 1998-99 brought out by UNICEF, which presents a grim picture regarding literacy for the world in general, and for India in particular. While there are 142 million children in the 6 to 11 years age group in India who are eligible to enter school and 98 million have been enrolled, only 63 million have been retained in schools. This means that about 80 million children are out of school.
Former Union Labour Secretary Dr Lakshmidhar Mishra has come down heavily on state governments' lack of commitment to provide any protective cover to millions of vulnerable children at their most crucial stage of development. In a comprehensive and thought-provoking book, 'Child Labour in India', Mishra stresses that total prohibition of child labour and provision of free, compulsory and universal primary education should go together.
The release of children from the workplace and restoration to their families, he says, must be backed by a process of immediate treatment for those who may have been battered and traumatised by exposure to a harsh work environment.
The ultimate objective of the whole process is the children's total rehabilitation -- physical, economic and psychological. Mishra stresses that nothing could be a more potent tool than education in the broadest sense, transcending mere alphabetical literacy to include a variety of skills which will equip children to face the future independently and with confidence.
These ideals are supposedly reflected in the new programmes of the Department of Women and Child Development (which is part of the Ministry of Human Resource Development). The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) is now being converged with other schemes to include linkages with education and health. Nutrition coverage of children and pregnant and lactating women is also being strengthened under the ICDS programme.
The situation of children was certainly not satisfactory prior to economic reforms, but now the drastic and sudden decline in not only household incomes but also government expenditure on health, education and child-care makes the current decade more painful for many children in India, says Gathia.
He is critical of the much-talked about safety nets for vulnerable groups, saying that these are inadequately funded and affected by basic design problems. Signs of growing poverty among children and other marginal groups are clearly indicated by the declining food consumption and attendance in schools, reduced availability of essential drugs and gradual increase in migration and homelessness.
At another level, a perusal of some of the child development indicators are a stark reminder that India
has a long way to go
to meet the goals set
at the 1990 World
Summit for Children.
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"A number of studies in the Asian region demonstrate that poverty is a necessary - but not the only - factor underlying the early entrance of children into paid or unpaid work situations,"
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Though the nutritional status of children is improving slowly, it is far from the goal of reducing malnutrition to 25 per cent of the total children by 2000. Even today India accounts for one-third of the world's children who suffer from malnutrition.
Nearly one-third of the children born in the country have low birth weight, a level that has shown no reduction in the last two decades, and nearly half the children under age three are underweight. India's low birth weight is among the lowest in the world, according to UNICEF figures.
According to recent National Family Health Survey (NFHS) data, over 60 per cent of the children are anaemic, resulting in lower ability to learn and less energy. These rates are often higher for socially marginalised children.
It cannot be denied that the country has made major gains in terms of a sharp decline in vaccine-preventable diseases and is well on the road to eradicating polio. High levels of iodisation of salt and significant improvements in access to safe drinking water have also been achieved while close to 95 per cent of the population has access to a primary school within a one-kilometre radius.
These achievements, however, cannot mask the magnitude of the unfinished tasks still at hand. Official statistics show that close to 1.8 million infants die every year before completing their first year of life due to preventable causes while 53 per cent children under five years remain moderately to severely malnourished.
The government is in the process of compiling data for its Second Country Report to be presented to the UN Committee on the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), an obligatory requirement for all countries that have ratified the CRC. India, a signatory to the Convention, submitted its first report in February 1997.
Meanwhile, international pressure is mounting on India and other countries that have large concentrations of child labour, especially after ILO Convention #182 on the eradication of the worst forms of child labour came into force late last year.
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