Child labour in India's cities has increased by 53% in a decade

[prasad1]

Share:

Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn WhatsApp Email Share Link

• Child labour in India's urban areas increased 53% over the decade between 2001 and 2011. In the age group five-to-nine years, the number of girls put to work increased 240%, boys 154%.
• Urban India has 0.2 million elementary schools, against 1.2 million in rural areas; urban schools serving the poor are more crowded than rural schools and their learning outcomes as dismal.

India's rapidly-growing urban areas have better education facilities than rural areas, but these are unequally distributed.
Schools serving the urban poor have an average of 229 students, against 118 in rural areas, the PwC-Save The Children report said. A school building working double-shift to accommodate more children is seen more often in urban areas (11%) than in rural ones (2%), and urban schools for the poor have a higher dropout rate.

Class I-V	13.6	12.4	26
Class VI-VII	6.9	6.3	13.3

[TH="class: center, bgcolor: #ff7f0e, colspan: 4"]Primary to Upper Primary: The Great Fall 2013-14 (Urban Retention Rate)[/TH]

[TH="bgcolor: #ff7f0e"]Classes[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #ff7f0e"]Boys[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #ff7f0e"]Girls[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #ff7f0e"]Total[/TH]

The table shows that the number of children who move from primary to upper-primary school comes down by almost half in urban areas. Migration is one of the major reasons for kids leaving school. Since parents keep moving, children have to move with them.
"It seems that the existing number of schools is insufficient to accommodate all children in urban schools and its impacts are obvious on enrolment and retention of children in the school," said the PwC-Save-The-Children report.

http://www.sify.com/finance/child-l...3-in-a-decade-news-economy-ph1s1iabachfi.html

 

[prasad1]

• A child from a poor, urban family is 40% more likely to die than a richer child in India’s towns and cities.
• Children below 10 in urban areas—especially girls—are 20% more likely to be sick than children of the same age in rural areas.
• One in 10 of nearly two million homeless people in urban areas is a child, of which more than half (boys and girls) reported sexual abuse.
• More than a third of homeless children admitted to substance abuse—from glue-sniffing to hard drugs—and 96% of those who did were boys.

IndiaSpend has compiled data from various sources to evolvea picture of what it means to be a child from a poor, urban family—or without a family. Officially, a personwho lives on less than Rs 47 a day is counted as poor. Part one today focuses on health, homelessness and substance abuse, while Part two next week explores education, crime and child labour.
One of the sources used is a new report Forgotten Voices—The World of Urban Children in India released this week by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), a consultancy, and Save The Children, an advocacy. We have also added in data from, among others, the Census, the National Urban Health Mission (NUHM), the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (NCPRCR) and the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
Poor, urban children: Among India’s most disadvantaged


The picture that emerges of poor, urban children is that they are among India’s most disadvantaged people. In many respects, they are worse off than those in rural areas, with indications that they may never be a part of what is called India’s demographic dividend—economic growth driven by 472 million below 18 years of age, the largest number of young people in the world.
Urban children, especially those from disadvantaged sections, are susceptible to ill-health, poor access to water and sanitation, insufficient education, urban disasters and lack of protection, noted the PwC and Save Our Children report.
As distress grows in rural India, still home to 833 million people, India’s urban areas are witnessing a population explosion. The urban population added 91 million people—more than the populations of Germany or Egypt—in the decade ending in 2011 and grew 2.5 times faster than in rural areas.
Of those families that are migrants, the overwhelming majority begins life on the streets, move into slums and then—if they succeed—work their way up. It is a difficult life, and those most vulnerable are children.

 

[krish44]

When one sees the status of poverty in urban slums ,one is appalled at the callousness of the the govt.The children are the worst victims.

Several years back a couple from bihar belonging to paswan community moved to delhi with two small girl children and lived on the pavement and set up a small tea stall.

After 20 plus years All he has is a small hand cart still selling tea with both daughters in late teens helping him. He has a small tent alongside which serves as his

home.He has to manage with street tap and community toilet in market nearby.Where is the future for people like him?.

for most street children ,it is survival of the fittest. Disease, malnutrition,living of crumbs and most made to work under inhuman conditions in small auto repair shops,

roadside hotels and such jobs. education is for a few whose parents have a room in a slum and both work to send them to a school,nearby. Drop out rates specially for

girls is very high.They become domestics if slightly better off or rag pickers if totally poor. most have to use street taps and community toilets which is not safe at

nights for women and girls. It is heart wrenching. What has independance meant to them?

Most are under constant threat from police , slum goons .They get exposed to domestic violence,drug abuse when young. Very lucky ones come up .