Children's Day 2020: Are Children Safe Today..?

On this day, let us realise the plight of our country's children..!

American speaker Henry Ward Beecher once said, "Children are the hands by which we take hold of heaven". Children are the group people consider as the epitome of purity, innocence and love. It is very essential that all children grow up in a very healthy environment, as it may affect what they become in their life. A lot of social evils – such as foeticides, child labour, abduction, kidnaps, rapes- are pulling our society back, from achieving the state of a child-safe country.

November 14^th is celebrated in our nation as Children’s Day. It is the birth anniversary of India’s first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who was very fond of children. The day focuses on the prominence of giving adoration, attention and affection to children, and to increase awareness of rights, care and education for them. It had been 73 years since we became an independent country and more than half a century since we started celebrating Children’s day on 14^th November. On this Children's Day, let us analyse where we stand in terms of child safety and crimes against children…!

India moved four positions up, in terms of Global Child Rights Index (an indicator that shows how children's rights are respected worldwide) in 2020. This seems to be a very positive fact only until you realize that our country's rank is 113, out of the 182 countries considered. The evaluation was done by Kidsright Foundation, which considered five factors for their analysis.

•       Right to Life
•           Right to Protection
•           Right to Education
•           Right to Health
•           Enabling environment for Child Rights

Fate is not different if you consider other surveys. According to US News and World Report’s survey about the best countries to raise children, India stands 59^th, when 73 countries were considered in 2020 and stood 65^th when 80 countries were considered in 2019. Why is it so..? 

Crimes Against Children Increasing Manifold: The Shocking Statistics

It is absolutely shocking that crimes against children are increasing at an alarming rate. It is also important to note that these crimes have increased since liquor shops were opened as a part of post-lockdown reliefs. The total crimes against children took a leap from 10,814 in 2001, to 1,29,032 within a period less than two decades . As per statistics, 109 children were raped in India every day in 2018. CRY(Child Relief and You) conducted a survey of these crimes (year 2016-17) and analysed that states like Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh contribute highest to these crimes with 14.8% each. States which seems well developed have not grown much in these cases. In Kerala, the crimes against children increased by around 500% from 2008 to 2018, a significant fraction of them being rapes. 

Are all children availing their RIGHT TO EDUCATION..?

 According to the Right to Education Act 2009, all children of age 6 to 14 have their right to receive education. But there are 32 million children who have never gone to schools for education. The graph goes down, the higher we go in levels of education. The dropout rate is almost 50% for both boys and girls in between the classes 3 to 5. Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER), (the ratio of population in the 18-23 age group to the number of people enrolled in higher education) in India is 26.3% in the 2018-19 academic year. Poverty and unawareness of the importance of education explain this drop.

Foeticides, Child Marriages and Child Labour

Even after strong rules being passed against, foeticide still exists in many parts of the country. In the year 2016, a total of 144 cases of foeticides were reported in India, 3 of 4 cases being reported either from Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh or Chattisgarh. As per CRY analysis 2016-17, 395 cases of child marriage were reported; the only positive fact being that these cases are at least, getting reported. As per the last Census data, around 10.1 Million children are into child labour. (Child labour, being a matter that still demands a very huge space, and not a mere paragraph's explanation, can be dealt with in some other blog.)

What Can We DO..?

It is the need of the hour for people to change their mentality. Girl children should not be considered a burden by anyone. Proper education should be imparted to people from regions where child marriage is prevalent, about the biological factors that were considered before setting the age limit of marriage. We must educate people that child labour will definitely provide their family with enough money for now, but if educated, your child's life levels will be elevated many storeys up, from what your family is in today.

Children should be made aware of the limits of intimacy any person can show to them, about good and bad touches, and should be made free to speak to their parents if they feel any uneasiness from anyone’s looks or deeds.

But before educating children about their safety, the attitude of people must change, as it is this attitude that causes these problems and not the innocence of children. 

©Copyrights of the images used in this blog belong to the respective photographers/designers. 

PS: All the statistical data were collected from reliable sources of the internet. Kindly neglect inadvertent errors. If you find any factual mistakes, kindly let me know in the comments. Let us grow by correcting our mistakes..!