| Issue 21 Vol I, August 15, 2006 | Archive |
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The Lost
Childhood
These are not just at the crossings. On heaps of garbage, they pick up the rags, plastic material and whatever falls to their fancy or could be sold to the kabariwala for a pittance. In the busy motor markets, girls aged six to ten are often seen in their soiled oil soaked clothes, collecting plastic and rubber parts, sometimes cleaning them with their mouths. They are not aware of the dangers of contamination or sickness they might get. Ten or twenty rupees which make at the end of the day are all these emaciated girls worry about. "We go through the garbage fields to look for glass, plastic and other recyclable materials. We collect about 10 or 20 rupees for each bag containing a kilo of this material," Shanti, an eight or nine year told this writer in the Manimajra’s motor market. She as well as had no idea of their age and wondered why someone should be interested finding what they do and where they live. If they collect less, they are called thieves by their elders and beaten black and blue. In Chandigarh’s shanties often listens to their shrieks and cries in the evening. Chandigarh, the city of the legendary le Carbousie is alone. Every city can boast of hundred or perhaps thousands such child beggars or rag pickers. So be not surprised when world’s foremost news agency, Reuters and its AlertNet conclude through a survey that India is the sixth most dangerous place for children. This poll, part of a Reuters AlertNet campaign to focus on neglected humanitarian crises, also suggested that children are more at risk as they are in conflict-ridden war-torn regions such as Afghanistan, the Palestinian Territories, Myanmar, and Chechnya. India, in fact, ranks just better than Darfur in Sudan, Northern Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia. Those polled include experts from international aid agencies and the idea is to highlight the lack of coverage of these issues in the international media. The respondents, who were not given a specific definition of the word `dangerous', were nevertheless given a list of indicators of deprivation such as hunger, malnutrition, lack of access to education and health care, child labour, gender discrimination, child sexual abuse, and factors like exposure to violence.
Other harsh facts about are too disturbing for an ancient civilized country like India that is hailed the future economic powerhouse and whose ruler spend millions on India shining or Bharat Uday advertising campaigns. Look at this desolate picture: A large proportion of the world's 218 million child workers are in India, which came sixth in the poll. "An estimated 60 to 115 million children are classified as working children - the highest number in the world," said Anuradha Mittal, director of the Oakland Institute think tank. "Deprived of their childhoods, most have never seen the inside of a school." U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees Wendy Chamberlin highlighted the case of Nepali girls who are trafficked to Indian cities, including Mumbai and Calcutta, for sex work. "They are really trapped," she said. Colin Gonsalves. When the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) case started in 2001, there were starvation deaths reported throughout the country. The active intervention of the Supreme Court enthused many, and put the issue of food security on the centre stage. I have no doubt that had the Supreme Court not intervened, the thrust of globalisation, privatisation and structural adjustments would have resulted in the closure of the public distribution system and the curtailment of the midday meal scheme and the integrated child development scheme (ICDS). WORLD
New development mantra of reforms and globalisation Why and how of the problem Then the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler, visited India in August last year and made his report to UN. He found that "levels of malnutrition and poverty remain very high and food insecurity has increased since the 1990s." He found "one of the highest levels of child malnutrition in the world, higher than most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa". He calculated that 80 per cent of the Indian population was living on less than two dollars per day. He saw signs of increased concentration in land ownership and increased landlessness. He reported over 250 cases of starvation deaths from many parts of India and in particular from the tea gardens in West Bengal. He found hunger rampant among the dalits and tribals. He personally witnessed practices of casteism and untouchability in villages of Orissa. He concluded that "India was not currently on track to achieve the goals set in relation to malnutrition and under nourishment” in the UN's Millennium Development Goals. |
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IN
one of India’s best known cities, fondly called by its citizens, as the City
Beautiful, one often comes across on the busy road crossings small children,
who have perhaps never washed or bathed with and their bodies covered with
smoke. They look every bit soiled, hairs jumbled and one can not locate
except their teeth and eyes. Unmindful of the running cars, and the lurking
danger of being run over, they fix themselves at corners and beg. Some
handover a coin or two and purify their guilty conscience. Some just look
away and wish they were not there. Many more curse them and abuse their
parents who have produced them and forgotten. Their guardians or parents
count their day’s collections and give them some crumbs of food and forget.
They grow up, loitering and begging. What becomes of them is not difficult
to guess.
UNICEF,
International summed up earlier this year; 1.2 million children under five
die from malnutrition every year. Child labour is outlawed, but tens of
millions are forced to work to help feed their families or pay loan sharks.
Rights groups estimate 60 to 115 million children work. More than 2 million
children under five die each year. Malnutrition affects nearly half of under
fives. Diarrhoea is the second biggest child killer. Children have been
uprooted by violence in Kashmir and the northeast. Thousands of unborn girls
are aborted. As this year's State of the World Children's Report from UNICEF
points out, half the world's undernourished children live in South Asia.
India's malnutrition rate stands at 47 per cent, the same as Ethiopia's. As
far as child labour is concerned, the 2001 Census reports a figure of 12.7
million working children but the numbers are likely to be three times
higher. There is no question that the majority of children in India are
subject to various forms of severe deprivation.