I had the opportunity to review the website of the Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Center's page: http://www.childhoodpoverty.org/ and was able to obtain valuable information regarding "India", and its struggles with poverty among its children. Among the many insights that I was able to obtain is that India is the second country with the highest level of poverty in the nation. Despite the efforts that the government has done to reduce the levels of poverty, by increasing economic growth, increasing provision of basic services, land and tendency reforms and many other interventions the numbers continue to be high. The sad part of this is that those that lack of access to assets, skill and low levels of health and education are the least to benefit from these interventions.
Among the many disadvantages poor people face, health is one of many things that is strongly affected. Rahasthan, which is Indian's largest state, women and children suffer the lack of proper heath care, which brings the spread of communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malnutrition, and maternal and perinatal illnesses. It is estimated that around 62 million children under the age of five are malnourished and 34 percent of newborns are underweight. All problems arising due to the growing population, industrialization, and a globalizing economy. Another significant insight regarding India, is that it accounts for 20% of the worlds out-of-school children as well as having the largest number of working children in the world, being a third of the children below 16 years of age. A common disadvantage that exist among children from India and their access to education is the discrimination towards girls, gender discrimination is still very common in this country. Despite the fact that more girls are currently enrolled in schools, you can still observe a higher attendance of boys then girls in schools, they tend to be less exposed to the outside world and there is a great emphasis on domestic skills.
Those statistics leave me speechless. I had no idea it was that bad in India. And the fact that such a significant number of children are working before the age of 16 is troubling. Children that age should be focused on school and enjoying their childhood. I wonder what it will take to turn the country around?
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