Considerable progress on MDGs 4 and 5: Health Ministry
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India has seen a 61 per cent decline in under-5 mortality rate since 1990, said Dr Rakesh Kumar, an official from the Indian Health Ministry.
New Delhi: India has made considerable progress on two of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) aimed at reducing child mortality and improving maternal health, said Dr Rakesh Kumar, Joint Secretary, India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
“India has made considerable progress on MDGs 4 & 5 with the introduction of the National Rural Health Mission.
(NRHM) and the National Urban Health Mission (NUHM). Ten Indian States have already achieved the MDG 4 targets,” he said. Kumar was speaking during a National CSO Consultation on ‘Post 2015 Sustainable Development Agenda and the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescent Health’. The consultation was organised by the RMNCH+A Coalition in collaboration with two nonprofits, Save the Children and White Ribbon Alliance India (WRAI).
Stressing on the need for better implementation of the existing guidelines, Kumar shared that that India had seen a 61 per cent decline in under-5 mortality rate since 1990, higher than the global average.
“We recognise that neonatal mortality, pneumonia and diarrhoea continue to be leading causes of under-5 deaths in India, attributing to about 80% of the overall under-5 mortality. With interventions such as continuum of care, reaching the unreached, improving quality of care, introduction of three new paediatric vaccines in the Universal Immunization
Programme across 4 key States of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, India plans to achieve improved results on MDG 4,” he said.
Kumar highlighted that schemes such as Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakram and initiatives like access to skilled birth attendants, transportation access, sharpening the equity focus have enabled a higher rate of decline of maternal mortality rate in India by 71 per cent down from 560 in 1990 to 167 in 2013.
Kumar lamented that adolescent pregnancies continued to be an area of concern in India. “Initiatives such as delayed  age of marriage, ensuring spacing at birth, adolescent health programmes such as weekly iron and folic acid supplements, adolescent friendly health clinics and schemes like the Menstrual Hygiene Scheme, the Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram aim at achieving improved results,” he said. Shireen Vakil Miller, Head of Policy, Save the Children, said India has persistently high rates of newborn mortality as the country accounted for 27 per cent of all newborn deaths globally, with 785000 newborn deaths a year. “India has made dramatic progress in bringing the under-5 mortality from 114 in 1990 to 50 per 1000 live births in 2012, showing a commendable decline of 58 per cent. Despite this, India represents some of the greatest challenges like inequity in
seeing this revolution through,” she said.
Dr Flavia Bustreo, Assistant Director-General, Family, Women’s and Children’s Health, World Health Organization, discussed the role of civil society in promoting the health of women and children.“Civil Society Organisations play a critical role in budget tracking and advocating adequate spending to achieve improved child and women health indicators.”
Dr Aparajita Gogoi, the National Coordinator of WRAI, called on the civil society for the latter’s engagement in the setting up of the post 2015 agenda. “Progress can be accelerated through citizen engagement at every level of the health system and by ensuring responsiveness to deliver on commitments,” she said. This National Consultation aims to ensure India focused inputs into the global strategy based on perspectives from the civil society organzations.

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NSS report of January 2014 points towards higher incidence of child labour in Gujarat than rest of India

The National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), in a report put out in January 2014, “Employment and Unemployment Situation in India, 2011-12”, has found that both in rural areas and urban areas, Gujarat has one of the highest percentage of child workers. The report should be a big blow to the state’s powerful policy makers who have claiming that Gujarat has negligible incidence of child labour.

The latest National Sample Survey (NSS) data, put out in January 2014, have revealed a stark reality: The proportion of child labour in Gujarat in both urban and rural areas is one of the highest in India. Calculated on the basis of usual status of employment, taking principal and subsidiary activities together, the NSS has found that, in urban Gujarat 2.2 per cent of children in the age-group 5-14 are in the workforce, which is higher than most Indian states, except West Bengal (12.6 per cent) and Uttar Pradesh (4.4 per cent). Things are worse in rural areas, where Gujarat’s 4.3 per cent of children in the age-group 5-14 are the workforce, which is again higher than all major Indian states, except Jharkhand (6.7 per cent).

An analysis of the NSS data suggest that there was a fall in child labour in Gujarat, from 3.6 per cent of the child population, as found in the NSSO’s report of 2006 on the basis of the survey carried out the top Government of India statistical body carried out in 2004-05, to 2.2 per cent in the latest report, which is based on the NSSO’s survey of 2011-12. A similar fall in the percentage of child workers can in seen in the rural areas – from 5.6 per cent in 2004-06 to 4.3 per cent in 2011-12. However, as the “Reference Note” on child labour, published by the Lok Sabha secretariat in 2013 and meant for use to members of parliament, admits, fall in the percentage of child labour is an all-India phenomenon.

The “Reference Note” specifically says, “Evidence drawn from the National Sample Survey data suggest that India’s child workforce during 2004-05 was estimated at little over 90.7 lakh as against 215.5 lakh in 1983. During this period, the number of child employment declined sharply by 124.8 lakh. There is considerably higher fall in child workforce among boys than girls. The corresponding fall in boys and girls workforce during 1983 to 2004- 05 is observed to have decreased from 120.6 to 47.6 lakh, and 94.9 to 43.1 lakh, respectively.” As for 2009-10, it points out, “As per NSSO survey 2009-10, the working children are estimated at 49.84 lakh which shows a declining trend.”

Quoting a Rajya Sabha unstarred question, the “Reference Note” says that in 2009-10, Gujarat had 3,90,687 child workers – 3,58,460 rural and 32,224 urban. This was, significantly, the highest among all Indian states. While no quantification of child workers in Gujarat has been made in the latest NSS report put out in January 2014, it can safely be assumed that things should have not changed. As against Gujarat’s 3.5 lakh child labourers found in 2009-10, Bihar had 2.7 lakh, Maharashtra 2.6 lakh, Karnataka 2.2 lakh, and so on. The lowest number of child workers was in Kerala, merely 2,765, next lowest being Himachal Pradesh (7,391).

These facts have come to light at a time when a new bill is pending before the national Parliament which wants to include ban child labour up for those who reach 18 years of age. While NSS does not have separate figures for children between 15 and 18, it has found that in the age-group 15-19, i.e. those who should potentially be in high school and beyond up to the college, again, Gujarat has one of the highest percentage of workers. In rural areas, 33.4 per cent of children work, which is higher than all the Indian states. In urban areas, too, 21.3 per cent of the age group 15-19 work, which is again higher than all Indian states.

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Child labour Gallery

 

 

 

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childs in mines

Reclaiming childhood from the pits of Jharkhand

Published by MAC on 2011-05-24 

Source: India Daily News (2011-05-06)

Reclaiming childhood from the pits of Jharkhand

By Priya Zutshi

Asian News International / India Daily News

6 May 2011

Ranchi - Sambhu Kumar, 14, gingerly descends into an abandoned mine in the Giridih district of Jharkhand. In one hand, the young boy clutches iron rods, heated to allow greater leverage in digging. In the other hand, he carries a sack. To descend, he uses crevices on the walls of the pit, where one slip will result in a 10 feet deep fall.

Child labour in India- Images by Kevin Frayer / Associatied Press

If the wet black walls cave in, he will be buried alive. Since he is mining illegally - these mines have been declared unsafe for operations - his family will get no compensation.

Once at the bottom, Sambhu uses the heated rod to scrape out chunks of coal. Hours later, he emerges from the pit, his sack full, sweat pouring from every pore of his bony body.

Once out, he has to pedal away furiously - if spotted, he will be arrested under the Anti Goonda Act - the law enforced by the government to curb illegal mining. One day's work fetches the boy twenty rupees, which he uses to buy food for his below-poverty-line family.

"When I was younger, the dark caves used to terrify me but then I realised that I better get used to it. I need to gather coal to survive; I know of no other way to make sure we live," he says.

Sambhu's father died in a mine accident some years ago, so his mother and three younger siblings depend on him for their daily needs. The house that they live in is a temporary shelter: they lost their previous home when the area was cordoned off for mining; they did not get any compensation. None of the siblings have ever been to school.

The Mines Act, 1952, stipulates that anyone below 18 years of age cannot be employed in mines; but children like Sambhu operate under the radar, working in the hundreds of abandoned mines that dot the entire coal-rich Chhota Nagpur area.

Many children also work - illegally with the adults on the functional mines in the area, getting Rs. 150 per day - a lucrative bargain for the middlemen who 'source' the children.

Working in mines is not just a dangerous occupation, but affects overall respiratory health as well. With the frequent exposure to dust and coal particles, these children suffer from problems such as asthma and chronic cough. Alcohol is the most available recourse to deal with constant coughs as the primary health centre is out of reach for the tribal hamlets.

The abysmal state of poverty that the families are living in is a relatively new phenomenon for this traditionally self-sufficient tribal community. Over the past few decades, the forests on which they depended on for food, fodder and fuel have depleted drastically, much of it taken over for mining.

Illegal mining has now become a livelihood norm for everyone, not just children. Their health and lives are both at risk: the dangerous and dirty job makes the men alcohol-dependant very quickly.

Corruption and government apathy have done the rest: getting work is difficult, and casual labour pays very poorly. The safety nets - schools, health centers, ration shops - are largely absent, putting the right to lead a life of dignity further out of reach.

This community, once agrarian and reasonably self-reliant, is now used as underpaid daily wage labourers in coal and mica mining. With no employment guarantees for adults, children like Sambhu are forced to make hard decisions.

"In a resource-rich state like Jharkhand, these vulnerabilities are newly created. For children like Sambhu and his family, the immediate need is to make sure adult livelihood options pay optimal returns," says Saibal Baroi from CRY's Jharkhand team.

CRY partners with Jago Foundation, a local organisation to form groups of children - some child labourers, some school-goers - who took up the cudgels on behalf of their impoverished families. "The larger vision is to make sure the control over local resources goes back into the hands of these communities." With this in mind, Jago Foundation runs community-level awareness and mobilisation initiatives that exhort and enable people to demand their fair entitlements.

Successes are few and gruelingly won: the community workers and children go door to door to convince people to stand up for their rights, organise demonstrations in front of government officials to demand just wages, and set up self-help groups to make sure people have something to fall back on in times of extreme distress.

The seeds of change have been sown in the region, and in Sambhu's life. "None of my brothers and sisters will be forced to descend into those hellish caves for a living," he says.

The local children's group appoints its own 'Ministers' in order to understand and imbibe the values of public governance better. Teenage girls have formed groups that keep an eagle eye on any possible child marriage - the group aims to make the area child-marriage-free.

Women's groups have taken strong steps to stop the sale of alcohol in their villages: they believe that the easy availability pushes the men into alcoholism. This last campaign is an eminently successful one, supported, interestingly, by the men themselves.

The Charkha Development Communication network is of the view that to keep up the tempo, both government and civil society has to step in to make sure economic exploitation does not guise itself as growth: most of the resources for which the State is known is fetching money for people other than the original inhabitants of these forests.

What's more, it is leaving in its wake a kind of dehumanising poverty, like Sambhu's, which the region has never ever experienced.

See also the highly-revealing images of child and adult labour in the Jharia coal fields of Jharkhand in the Greenpeace video:Jharia : the living pyre and the true cost of coal:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYNLerVxUiA&feature=related

 

 

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child labour

India's child labour

Section 12 of India's Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act of 1986 requires prominent display of 'child labour is prohibited' signs in many industries and construction sites in local language and English. Above a sign at a construction site in Bangalore.

Section 12 of India's Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act of 1986 requires prominent display of 'child labour is prohibited' signs in many industries and construction sites in local language and English. Above a sign at a construction site in Bangalore.

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Great news! A new ILO report shows that the global number of child labourers has decreased

Great news! A new ILO report shows that the global number of child labourers has decreased by a third since 2000, from 246 million to 168 million girls and boys. In spite of this, though, we need to step up the fight as we are far from reaching the goal of eliminating the worst forms of child labour by 2016. Let’s hold up the #RedCard to #ChildLabour!

“We are moving in the right direction but progress is still too slow,” ILO Director-General Guy Ryder said, adding that more has to be done to make sure every girl and boy on the planet have a REAL childhood. “There are 168 million good reasons to do so,” he exclaimed.

The new report shows that more than half of the world’s child labourers, or 85 million, are in hazardous work. This is work that directly endangers their health, safety and moral development.

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