Hidden India - Children Violence

Children are considered as future of nation. But India doesn't seem to be interested in protecting or giving rights to their children those constitute one third of the total population (about 400 million). Every single day children rights are violated & nobody give them any preference.

The 1989 UN Charter, to which India is a signatory, guarantees every child the following rights

- Right to Survival - To life, health, nutrition, name, nationality

- Right to Protection - From exploitation, abuse, neglect

- Right to Development - To education, care, leisure, recreation, cultural activities

- Right to Participation - To expression, information, thought, religion

No-one in India is interested in giving them education, basic health facilities. How many here in India follows the above child rights? Problem of child labor continues despite of "Child Labor Act(s)".

India has highest number of vitamin - A children in world, about 330,000 children die yearly because lack of vitamin - A. About 75% below 3 months are suffering from anemic. While one in every five adolescent boys is malnourished, one in every two girls in India is undernourished.

See the glaring facts:-

In India, only 53% of habitation has a primary school.

In India, only 20% of habitation has a secondary school.

On an average an upper primary school is 3 km away in 22% of areas under habitations.
In nearly 60% of schools, there are less than two teachers to teach Classes I to V.

On an average, there are less than three teachers per primary school. They have to manage classes from I to V every day.

High cost of private education and need to work to support their families and little interest in studies are the reasons given by 3 in every four drop-outs as the reason they leave.

Dropout rates increase alarmingly in class III to V, its 50% for boys, 58% for girls.

1 in 40, primary school in India is conducted in open spaces or tents.

In Andhra Pradesh (South India), 52 upper primary schools were operating without a building in 2002, while in 1993, there were none?

In Maharashtra (West India), there were 10 schools operating without a building in 1993, this has climbed to 33 in 2002.

More than 50 per cent of girls fail to enroll in school; those that do are likely to drop out by the age of 12.

50% of Indian children aged 6-18 do not go to schoolSource: 7th All India Education Survey, 2002

Mentally/Physically Challenged Children

3% of India's children are mentally/physically challenged.

20 out of every 1000 rural children are mentally/physically challenged, compared to 16 out of every 1000 urban children.

Mentally/physically challenged girls are at a particular risk to violence and abuse.

Child marriage is also one worst factor for India's empowerment! About 1.6 child marriages take place in India; a shocking statistic is that there are over 1.7 lakh divorces that take place among couples who are yet to reach the official marriageable age in the country. Child buying & child marriage is much common Rajasthan than other parts of India. According to 2001 census there were about 18.3 lakh child marriage cases recorded.

Children can be seen working in any industry, working at tea stalls, working in premium institute's shops, messes. School, colleges where the children are supposed to study are bound to work (40% children don't attend schools & 15 million children are bounded laborers). Whatever may be the reason, either poverty or any other; doesn't Governments have responsibilities to educate them if India has to become developed nation?? Not more than 4% of the total students go to professional colleges in Punjab - number one state as predicted by India Today in three consecutive years!!! People here in India keeps on fighting over silly questions like why such a person opened a school there, why not here. It's shameful that people think like this, these people won't ever think how we can make quality education, how to reduce the stress level on students (school bags of even nursery kids are more heavier than their own weights!!), how to reduce the dropout of students from schools, how to provide teachers in 60% schools those don't have proper teaching staff, won't even think how to construct buildings for primary schools in which students study under mango trees!! Nor even will ever think how to reduce child labor, but will continue fighting like ignorant. Even ignoring all these & many more facts we still believe that we are going to be a developed nation by 2020!!