CHILD ISSUES

CHILDREN

GENERAL POINTS

As per the 2011 census, there are 164.5 million children in India. Given their age, they are considered to be at risk for exploitation, abuse, violence, and neglect.

Challenges for Children in India

• Hunger and Malnutrition: India ranks 107th in the Global Hunger Index (2022). There is a paradoxical situation in India. On one hand, over a third (40%) of the food produced in India is wasted according to UNDP, and on the other hand, one third of the children are malnourished.
• Declining Child Sex Ratio: Child sex ratio in India declined from 927 in 2001 to 919 in 2011 [Census].
• Infant Mortality: India’s infant mortality rate is 28. While it has significantly declined over the years, it is much higher than in other countries.
• Access to Education: Though the right to education for all children between 6 to 14 years and additional incentives like scholarships for underprivileged children are guaranteed by the Constitution, still 32 million Indian children have never been to schools, according to an official report.
• Child Labour: India has around 10.1 million child laborers [Census 2011].
• Sexual Assault: Despite legal measures to protect children from sexual offenses, one out of three girls is facing some form of sexual offense in the form of physical, emotional, or verbal abuse in India.
• Child Marriages: India is home to 223 million or one in three of these child brides. Just under half that number, 102 million, were married before they turned 15 [UNICEF].

Government Measures

1. Constitutional Safeguards:
   • Fundamental Rights: Article 21 A, Article 23
   • Directive Principle of State Policy: Article 39, Articles 45, and Article 47
2. Legal Measures: Several legal measures such as the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 have been enacted to protect child rights in India.
3. Institutional Measures:
   • National Commission for Protection of Child Rights: It is a statutory body constituted to ensure that all laws, policies, programs, and administrative mechanisms are in consonance with the child rights perspective as enshrined in the Constitution of India and also the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
4. Schemes and Programmes: Schemes like the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Mid-Day Meal (MDM) Scheme, Integrated Child Development Scheme, National Nutrition Mission (Poshan Abhiyan), and SABLA Scheme, etc., are introduced for the holistic development of children in India.

Way Forward

• Implementation: The government has introduced several comprehensive policies and flagship programs, but the need of the hour is to implement them effectively through proper coordination among various ministries.
• Credible Data: The government has to ensure that credible data is available at all levels about missing, illiterate, and malnourished children.

• Complementary food: Development of innovations and establishment of guidelines to improve access to quality complementary food is needed to resolve the menace of malnutrition in India.
• Crime against women: To curb crimes against children, the reporting mechanism on violence against children should be strengthened by making it more accessible to children.
• Sensitization: Sensitize parents, service providers, and community for early identification and management of children facing abuse, violence, and gender issues.
• Vocational training: Emphasize vocational training for children, especially those involved in labor, after they complete the age of 15 years.

CHILD LABOUR

Child labor is work that deprives children of their childhood, potential, and dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development [ILO]. It includes work that is mentally, physically, socially, or morally dangerous and harmful to children. It also interferes with their schooling by depriving them of the opportunity to attend school or obliging them to leave school prematurely.

Causes of Child Labour

• Poverty: When families cannot afford to meet basic needs like food, water, education, or health care, they have no choice but to send their children to work to supplement the household income.
• Lack of access to quality education: Schools need to be a welcoming environment with appropriate class sizes, a curriculum designed for the local context, and affordable for rural communities.
• Poor access to decent work: Children involved in child labor often lack the basic educational grounding which would enable them to acquire skills and improve their prospects for a decent adult working life.
• Limited understanding of child labor: When families do not understand the dangers of child labor, they are more likely to send their children to work. Some cultural beliefs and social norms can also be drivers of child labor.
• Natural disasters & climate change: Rural families who depend on reliable seasons for farming are particularly vulnerable to climate change, pushing their children into labor.
• Conflicts & mass migration: Children make up more than half of the total number of people displaced by war [ILO]. They are vulnerable to forms of exploitation, including child labor, due to an increase in economic shocks, a breakdown of social support, education, and basic services, and disruption of child protection services.

Impact of Child Labour (CL)

1. On Child: Deprives of childhood; denial of right to education; working in hazardous conditions adversely affects physical and mental health.
2. On Economy:
   • Human capital formation: Children who work, instead of going to school, will remain illiterate, hindering quality human capital formation.
   • Informal economy: Less formalization of the economy.
3. Social Impact: Lack of education, leading to a lack of skill development, perpetuates poverty.

India’s Efforts Against Child Labour

1. Constitutional Provisions:
   • Article 23: Prohibits trafficking in human beings and forced labor.
   • Article 24: Prohibits the employment of children below the age of fourteen years in factories.
   • Article 39(e): Makes it a duty of the State to prevent children from entering into jobs unsuited to their age.
2. Legislations:
   • Child Labour Amendment (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 2016: Regulates the employment of children and does not allow children below the age of 14 to work, except as child artists or in family businesses.
   • The Factories Act, 1948: Prohibits the employment of children below the age of 14 years.
   • The Mines Act, 1952: Prohibits the employment of children below 18 years of age in a mine.
   • The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000: Makes it a crime, punishable with a prison term, for anyone to procure or employ a child in any hazardous employment or in bondage.
   • The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009: Mandates free and compulsory education for all children aged 6 to 14 years.
3. Schemes:
   • National Child Labour Project (NCLP) Scheme: Seeks to eliminate all forms of child labour through identification and withdrawal of children in the Project Area from child labour.
   • PENCIL Portal: Launched for effective implementation of NCLP.
   • Active role played by NGOs: Sensitization of stakeholders and local awareness to report instances, rehabilitation of affected children.
     • For example: Bachpan Bachao Andolan, Children’s Foundation, Save the Children, etc., have worked to protect children from this menace.
4. International Conventions:
   • ILO Convention: The ratification of ILO Convention 182 is the first ILO Convention to achieve universal ratification.

Way Forward

• Identification: There should be an exhaustive and identical definition of child labour for all industries and working establishments.
• Implementation: Rigorous implementation of penal provisions of the statutes is needed.
• Rehabilitative and reformative activities: Affordable quality education, ensuring better mental, emotional, and physical health after they are saved from hazardous institutions, etc.
• Awareness: Focusing on grassroots strategies to mobilize communities and sensitize trade organizations against child labour to increase reporting of such instances.

SAFEGUARDING CHILDREN AND IMPACT OF PANDEMIC

There are more than 2.2 billion children in the world who constitute approximately 28% of the world’s population. Those aged between 10 to 19 years make up 16% of the world’s population (UNICEF, 2019). COVID-19 has impacted the lives of people around the world, including children and adolescents, in an unprecedented manner.

Children as Future Capital

• Demographic Dividend: The children of today as the youth and thus the workers of tomorrow.
• Nature of Society: Children will become citizens of tomorrow and shape society in the way they see fit.
• Leaders of Tomorrow: By teaching children the right values and skills, we can help them make a positive impact on the world when they grow up.
• Workers of Tomorrow: It is projected that by 2050, half of the population growth will be from 9 countries, including India, thus it becomes very important to shape a proper policy to streamline children into able adults.
• Economic Progress: They are the future drivers of the economy and will determine how economic growth will take place.
• National Progress: The status and condition of children decide the social condition and national progress of the country.

Impact of Pandemic

1. Orphaned: Around 19.2 lakh children in India lost one or both of their parents due to COVID-19 during the initial 20 months according to estimates of a new study published in the Lancet.
2. Abandoned: Due to the death of a parent, or increase in poverty and loss of jobs, many children have been abandoned and left to fend for themselves on the streets.
   • Data: Since the pandemic, 30 million are abandoned or orphaned.
3. Poverty: The number of children living in multidimensional poverty has soared to approximately 1.2 billion due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
   • Data: 150 million additional children plunged into poverty due to COVID-19, according to UNICEF.
4. Nutrition: The loss of livelihoods for parents and a lockdown created issues in access to food and proper nutrition by the children.
5. Mental Health: Some children may experience bereavement reactions that are complicated by not having had contact with an ill relative before they passed away, for example, because of quarantine restrictions.
   • Data: It was found that younger children were more likely to manifest symptoms of clinginess and fear of family members being infected than older children.
6.  Social Wellbeing: Due to lockdown, many children had no physical access to friends, peers, schoolmates, and relatives for over two months. Limited or no opportunity for outdoor play and socialization may also impact children adversely.

1. Loss of Education: Due to schools being shut during lockdown, many children missed out on classroom teaching, especially those without smartphones.
2. Decline in Healthcare: There was an overall decrease of 2.26% in the number of institutional deliveries. Antenatal care services were the worst affected with a 22.91% decline. Immunization services were also dramatically decreased by more than 20%.
3. Educational Inequality: Children of well-off parents could afford to continue school on a digital basis; however, the poorer children had to effectively drop out of the schools.
   • Data: The lockdown has significantly impacted 40 million children from poor families. These include children working on farms, fields in rural areas, children of migrants, and street children.

Other Issues faced by Children

1. Abuse: Children are the worst victims of sexual and mental abuse. They are also a huge component of trafficking crimes.
   • Data: “Study on Child Abuse India 2007,” which revealed that more than 53% of children in India have probably been sexually abused, and many have never shared the fact of this abuse with anyone.
2. Child Labour: It refers to work that is mentally, physically, socially, or morally dangerous and harmful to children, or work whose schedule interferes with their ability to attend regular school.
   • Data: An estimated 30% of the world’s child labor lives in India.
   • As per Census 2011, the number of working children in the age group of 5-14 years was 43.53 lakh.
3. Child Marriage: Child marriage has been a widely prevalent practice in India for a long time; however, it has reduced in recent decades.
   • Data: According to the National Population Policy, “over 50% of girls marry below the age of 18,” resulting in a typical reproductive pattern of “too early, too frequent, too many,” resulting in a high IMR (Infant Mortality Rate).
4. Delinquency: A juvenile in conflict with the law under the Juvenile Justice Act is a juvenile who is alleged to have committed an offense and has not completed 18 years of age as of the date of commission of such offense.

Some Government Initiatives

1. Health
   • India Newborn Action Plan (INAP): Launched in 2014 to make concerted efforts toward attaining the goals of “Single Digit Neonatal Mortality Rate” and “Single Digit Stillbirth Rate” by 2030.
   • Institutional Deliveries: Promotion of institutional deliveries through cash incentives under Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) and Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakram (JSSK).
   • Universal Immunization Programme (UIP): It is being supported to provide vaccination to children against many life-threatening diseases such as Tuberculosis, Diphtheria, Pertussis, Polio, Tetanus, Hepatitis B, and Measles. Pentavalent vaccines have been introduced all across the country.
   • Saksham: Scholarship for Differently-abled children. AICTE has decided to award scholarships per annum to all eligible differently-abled students to pursue technical education. The scholarship amount would be Rs. 50,000 per annum.
2. Education
   • SWAYAM: SWAYAM is a program initiated by the Government of India and designed to achieve the three cardinal principles of Education Policy viz., access, equity, and quality.
   • Swayam Prabha: Every day, there will be new content for at least (4) hours, which will be repeated 5 more times in a day, allowing students to choose the time of their convenience.
   • National E-Library: The E-Library has been envisaged as an online portal that will democratize access to knowledge by ensuring that quality content from central universities and premier educational institutions is available in a digital format that can be easily accessed by students.
   • Samagraha Shiksha Abhiyan: The Samagra Shiksha scheme is an integrated scheme for school education covering the entire gamut from pre-school to class XII. The scheme treats school education as a continuum and is in accordance with Sustainable Development Goal for Education (SDG-4).

1. Girl Child
   • Beti Padhao Beti Bachao: The Department of School Education and Literacy has supported the Ministry of Women and Child Development for the rollout of the “Beti Bachao Beti Padhao” Abhiyan across the country to enhance the sex ratio and the status of the girl child.
   • Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya: The scheme provides for access and quality education to girls from disadvantaged groups aspiring to study in Classes VI to XII to ensure smooth transition of girls from elementary to secondary and up to class XII wherever possible.
2. Post Pandemic
   • PM CARES for children’s scheme: The objective of the scheme is to ensure comprehensive care and protection of children in a sustained manner, and enable their wellbeing through health insurance, empower them through education, and equip them for self-sufficient existence with financial support upon reaching 23 years of age.

Way Forward

• Mental Health: Mental health professionals need to be involved in follow-up care of the victim with regard to the emergence of psychiatric disorders by providing individual counseling, family therapy, and rehabilitation.
• Cyber Bullying: The amendment should also include offenses such as cyber bullying of children and other online sexual crimes against children.
• Sex Education: The introduction of sex education in schools and educating children about good touch and bad touch is significant.
• Standing Committee Recommendations: The juvenile delinquency age should be reduced from 18 to 16, and all accused above 16 should be tried as adults for trials under the POCSO Act.
• Transparency: The adjudication process for such offenses should be made more transparent and the role of police in handling such offenses much more prompt.
• Resolution: The resolution process must speed up so that victims do not undergo harassment or wait years for justice.
• Cultural Sensitization: Communities must be sensitized regarding the ills of child marriage and encouraged to continue the education of children.
• Awareness: Problems related to the implementation of the POCSO Act, such as lack of adequate special courts, lack of sensitization for investigators and prosecutors in dealing with child victims, poor rates of convictions, etc., need to be resolved urgently.
• Background Checks: All adults interacting with children at schools and childcare services must be properly vetted for any past crimes of a sexual nature.
• List of Sexual Predators: As in the case of the US and UK, a state and district level list must be maintained of known child offenders.

POPULATION POLICY

Need for Population Stabilization

• Population estimate: Based on estimation of the most recent United Nations data, India’s current population is 1.4 billion (1,403,237,339) as of March 29, 2022.
• Population prediction: According to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs estimates, India’s population will reach 1.5 billion by 2030 and hit 1.64 billion in 2050. This would make India the largest populous country, overtaking China.

Globally, the debate over population explosion has erupted after recent ecosystem assessments pointed to the human population’s role in driving other species into extinction and precipitating a resource crunch.

Population Policies Under Five Year Plans

1. First Five Year Plan: In 1952, India became the first country in the world to implement a population control programme. It emphasized the use of natural family planning devices.
2. Second Five-Year Plan: Work was done in the areas of education and research, with a focus on the clinical approach.
3. Third Five Year Plan: The sterilization technique for both men and women was adopted under the Third Five-Year Plan in 1965.
   • The copper-T technique was also used. The Family Planning Department was established as a separate entity.
4. Fourth Five-Year Plan: All forms of birth control were encouraged (both traditional and modern).
5. Fifth Five Year Plan: The National Population Policy was announced on April 16, 1976, as part of the fifth five-year plan.
   • The Sharda Act of 1929 set a minimum age for marriage, which was raised under this policy.
   • It raised the minimum age for boys to 21 years old and for girls to 14 years old.
   • On the basis of the 1971 census, the number of MPs and MLAs was fixed until 2001.
   • Forced sterilization was permitted under this plan, but it was later abolished.
   • The name of the Family Planning Department was changed to Family Welfare Department by the Janata Party government in 1977.
6. Sixth to Eighth Five Year Plan: Efforts were made to control population in the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Plans by determining long-term demographic goals.
7. Ninth Five-Year Plan: In 1993, the government established an expert group to formulate national population policy under the chairmanship of M.S. Swaminathan.
   • Despite the fact that this group drafted a new population policy in 1994, it was reviewed by the Family Welfare Department in 1999 and passed by Parliament in 2000.
   • In February 2000, the central government released the “new national population policy.”

National Population Policy 2000

• It reiterated the government’s resolve to push for voluntary and informed choice and agreeability of citizens to get maximum benefit from reproductive health services.
• It embarks on a policy outline for the government for the next ten years to improve the reproductive and child health needs of people of India which include issues like child survival, maternal health, and contraception, etc.
• Objectives: To address the unmet needs for contraception, health care infrastructure, and personnel and provide integrated service delivery for basic reproductive and child health care.

Need for New Population Policy

• Narrow perspective: The National Population Policy 2000 is narrower in its perspective, giving much importance to contraception and sterilization.
• Insufficient infrastructure: Due to the lack of trained staff, inadequate aptitude among the staff, and limited use or misuse of equipment for population control, the policy resulted in failure.
• Less success on various parameters: Such as IMR, MMR, etc.
• Skewed sex ratio and child sex ratio: As per the 2011 Census, the Sex Ratio in India is 943, whereas the Child Sex Ratio is 919.
• Increase in the aging population: In the 2011 census, the 60+ population accounted for 8.6% of the population, totaling 103 million elderly people. This requires a re-orientation of population policy.
• Need for a more inclusive approach: Through generating awareness and educating people instead of coercion or compulsion.

Way Forward

1. Infrastructure
   • Strengthening health infrastructure: By promoting sterilization facilities in rural areas and institutionalized deliveries.
   • Use of technology and e-solutions: For registration and creation of datasets to have a consolidated repository.
2. Policy Level
   • Focus on young population: The basic prerequisites for meaningfully controlling the population include poverty alleviation, improving living standards, and expanding education.
   • Targeted Focus: On states that are lagging in achieving standard goals, such as UP and Bihar.
3. Multi-stakeholder Engagement: Involvement of all stakeholders, such as civil societies, ASHAs, etc., is needed for desired success.

TWO CHILD POLICY IN INDIA

A two-child policy is a government-imposed limit of two children allowed per family or the payment of government subsidies only to the first two children. A two-child policy has previously been used in several countries, including Iran, Singapore, and Vietnam. In British Hong Kong in the 1970s, citizens were also highly encouraged to have two children as a limit.

Current Scenario

• Two-Child Policy: Recently, the Assam government announced a Two-Child Policy. In this policy, people with more than two children will not be eligible for government jobs from January 2021.
• In 2005, Gujarat amended the Gujarat Local Authorities Act to “prevent a person having more than two children from being a member of a panchayat or a councilor of a municipality or municipal corporation.”
• Several states, including Assam, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh, already have some form of the two-child norm in place for those running for elected government posts or government jobs.

• The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has refused to implement such a legally enforceable two-child policy on a national level as of December 2020.
• Earlier, a nominated MP introduced a private member’s Bill – Population Regulation Bill, 2019, in the Rajya Sabha.

Advantages of Such a Policy

1. Political
   • Population Explosion: India’s population will continue to increase until 2051 as the population is young, with over 60% under the age of 35 years.
   • Less Budgetary Burden: A smaller number of beneficiaries would help governments allocate funds to other developmental works.
   • More Resources per Capita: In terms of wealth, food security, and opportunities.
2. Social
   • High Burden of Women: Women have benefited from fewer pregnancies and births, contributing to a decline in maternal mortality rate.
   • Malnutrition: With fewer resources allotted to each, nutritional levels of women and children are affected.
   • Gender Equality: This improvement in gender equality has contributed to improved health outcomes for young and middle-aged women.
   • Increased School Enrollment: Fewer children would mean more attention and thus better educational outcomes.
3. Economic
   • Less Division of Resources: More division of resources means each child gets fewer resources and attention.
   • Higher Disposable Incomes: Fewer children would mean more disposable incomes in families.
   • Higher Availability of Jobs in the Future

Issues with Such a Policy

1. Neglect of Third Child: In cases of unplanned pregnancies, the third child born may be deprived of opportunities and benefits under various schemes.
2. Unsafe Abortions: To limit child birth, unplanned pregnancies would have to be aborted, potentially jeopardizing maternal health due to the risks involved.
3. Female Infanticide: As a limit would essentially limit the male metanarrative, the girl child could be more prone to abandonment and killings.
4. Future Demography: The population limit may cause skewed demographics in the future, with higher rates of elderly as seen in nations like Japan and China.
5. Family Abandonment: Male members may engage in bigamous relationships to father more male children and may abandon families with a girl child.
6. Unnecessary: Data also indicate that 11 states/UTs account for 42% of the country’s population, yet they are already showing a decline in their Total Fertility Rates (TFRs).
7. Skewed Sex-Ratio: Such limits may also affect the natural sex ratio in the country.
8. State Interference: This policy could be seen as gross encroachment of the state into the private lives of persons.
9. Awareness: There has been a significant level of awareness regarding contraceptive methods, making family planning feasible without imposing strict limits.
   • Data: The number of districts with a modern contraceptives prevalence rate of over 60% has also increased significantly between the survey rounds (from 37 in 2015-16 to 111 in 2019-20).

1. Violates Fundamental Rights: Such a policy reinforces inequality and results in the exclusion of marginalized groups from welfare services concerning the 3rd child or families having a 3rd child.

Way Forward

1. Political
   • Increasing legal marriage age for women: The current age of 18 hampers women’s education and employment, leading to a lack of independence and more child-rearing responsibilities.
   • Legislative Steps: Proper enforcement of laws related to child labor, slavery, and beggary will prevent parents from selling their children or sending them to work, thus encouraging smaller families.
   • Incentivizing the girl child: With gender-sensitive budgeting, the girl child will no longer be seen as a liability, reducing the preference for male children.
2. Social
   • Social Campaigns: Campaigns like the Polio vaccination drive “Do Boond Zindagi” should be adopted for awareness generation, as it is considered a successful community campaign.
   • Community Awareness: By reducing social and cultural taboos in using contraception and encouraging behavior change communication, especially among men.
   • Adoption: For parents unable to have children despite costly treatments, adopting orphan children could be beneficial. The government should also provide incentives for adoption.
3. Healthcare
   • Better Healthcare System: Due to high infant mortality rates, families may want more births to ensure that some children survive, leading to population growth. Providing optimal medical facilities can help reduce this trend.
   • Voluntary Sterilization: Such initiatives should be conducted with adequate education and awareness, avoiding any coercion.

Best Practices on Population Control

• Thailand: Thailand launched its population program in 1970, making a broad array of contraceptives, including injectable and oral contraceptives, available without a prescription.
• Iran: Iran utilized its religious leaders to spread awareness of population issues, and in 1989, it restored its national family-planning program.
• USA: In 1997, the California legislature initiated the Family PACT (Planning, Access, Care, and Treatment) program to provide clinical family planning and reproductive health services at no cost to low-income residents.