Bleak Future for the Girl Child Living in the Urban Slums

[Bharatesh Karunakar Shetty]

“Puttava (name changed) is a 10 year old girl whom we found in karavali junction slum area. She was washing utensils. She stated that she has to do all domestic work and also take care of her younger brother who is 3 years old. Both her parents are working as coolie workers at the construction site. She does not attend the local school because she has to take care of her younger brother. She is interested in going to school but circumstances do not allow her. She also shared that her  parents keep migrating  in search of livelihood opportunities as a result she is not getting the opportunity to seek education.”

 

There are many such stories of girl children in the slum areas. This essay is written based on my experience while conducting micro-study titled “Health Facilities and Manpower in the Urban slums of Udupi urban area coastal part of Karnataka state.

 

Migration

 

Migration for livelihood is common across the world. In recent years, development in the urban areas has led to increase for the livelihood opportunities as a result people from rural areas are migrating to urban areas. Both ‘Migration’ and ‘Urbanization’ are integral part of the development and it cannot be stopped. The economic development of urban areas is not possible without migrants or migration. The people who migrate into urban areas reside in small clusters, this phenomenon has led to increase in slums settlements in cities. Globally, slums have been recognized as neglected communities with limited access to services. They are often characterized by deteriorated or poorly structured houses crowded together, poor environmental managements such as deficient access to safe drinking water and sanitation, stagnation of water, and poor drainage with excessive open sewers, excessive amount of uncollected rubbish, severe overcrowding, flies, and poor lighting. People residing in these areas  do not have proof of identity and residence and as a result they are unable to claim social protection entitlements and remain excluded from government sponsored schemes. Children are worst affected in the process, and they are deprived of education and regular schooling which also affects future development. Among children again the girl child has always been neglected and she has less privilege to education and good health.

 

It is estimated that the population in the urban areas will be increasing. By the end of year 2030, it is projected that close to 41% country’s population in urban areas. It has been reported that the total slum population in India has doubled in the past two decades and has risen from 27.9 million in 1981 to 42.6 million in 2001. According to the 2011 Census, 2400 towns in India reported slums and the total slum population comprised 22.58% of the total urban population of the states/union territories reporting slums.¹

 

Consequence of Migration on Girls and Women

 

One of the worst consequences of migration is its impact on education of children. The National Policy for the children state that “No child should be deprived of education”. The MDG Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 2 focuses on “Achieve Universal Primary Education” and MDG 3 focuses on “Promote gender equality and equity”. India is also committed to achieve these goals.

 

India is a home for large number of children in the world.  According 2011 census there are more than 400 million children, the large number any country in the world. Under Universal declaration of human rights, article 26 states that “Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages.² The Indian constitution in its 86^th amendment act notified on 13^th Dec 2002, made free and compulsory education a fundamental right of all children in the age group of 6-14 years. Despite of these amendments it is estimated that around 13 million of children are working and they are deprived of formal education.³ Among them majority of them are children live in urban slums. 

Girl children are mostly neglected and they have limited privileges to access education.

 

The major contributing factors for this emerging issue are widespread poverty, less priority for the education for girls , seasonal migration etc. Gender disparity is another major underlying cause due to which girls living in slum areas have less privileges for education and good health. The discriminatory attitudes towards girl children still exist  and it is been proved in a number of studies. One of the studies  indicated that the  South Asian region fares very poorly in the education of girls and women. It is estimated that nearly half of the world’s illiterate women live here.⁴

 

As a result of this, girls and women often face the consequences of living in slums. Girls are burdened with household work like  bearing the burden of domestic work, taking care of younger siblings and managing  household activities at the price of their own growth and development through means of education. Female literacy rates in Dar es Salaam’s slums are 50% compared to an overall rate of 94%⁵. In another study carried out in Allahabad slums indicated  that gender bias existed in the slum areas, and girls have less privilege for education. ⁶ The survey done in Mumbai’s Dharavi slum one of the biggest slums in the Asia revealed some of the alarming findings. Close to 86% of respondents opined that girls in the slum area should get married between the age of 16 to 18 years, they cannot attend school because they have to take care of younger siblings and do domestic household activities.⁷

 

The consequences of such practices are many and it is affecting the health of the women. Women who are not educated have less knowledge and less power to negotiate. In the slum areas girls have less choice and sometime they were even forced to get married at their tender age. The study carried out in Ahmedabad slum women in the year 2007 revealed nearly 7% women were married below 18 years, it was also seen women who are more educated has less number of children and ideal spacing of (3 years) was maintained.⁸  In another study carried out among women in Dharavi slums it was revealed that women (65%) married when they were less than 18 years, while 35% of the were found to be illiterate. Women who were illiterate and married at an early age gave birth to more than 3 children. ⁸ In another similar study conducted in the urban slums of Rohtak showed that the majority of women who were married were not using spacing methods.⁹ One of the studies clearly indicated that as the age of marriage increases, women are more literate and were aware about spacing methods and were practicing it.¹⁰ Thus, the educational status of women is proven to make a significant difference. It helps to women improve their knowledge by accessing information and also helps her make informed choices. The present study carried out in Udupi and Kundapur among slum settlements found that 20% of the girls have never gone to school and the reasons they stated were 1) No time for them to go to school because they have to household work 2) Parents continued to migrate in search of livelihood

 

All these findings and reviews indicate that there is a bleak future for girl child. Thus, to address this emerging issue, girls in the slums areas should be linked to formal/informal schooling and ensured that at least they will attain primary level of education which enables them to read and write.  There are some good initiatives from the government and non-government organization to address this issue. However, such efforts in India are a countable number. An NGO called Namma Bhoomi is relentlessly working towards this issue in Udupi district. Even today, large numbers of children, particularly girls, are deprived from education. Investment in the education for children during their early age is crucial and it helps them be equipped with the right knowledge about their health. Government and NGOs have to play with proactive role along with community participation and try to ensure all the children (both girls and boys) in the slum area are enrolled for primary education and also help them make more responsible for health by accessing information

 

Let us all ensure that the future of girl child  who are dwelling slum areas will be more prosperous by helping them to access education and good health.

[Krinna Shah]

Dear Renu,

I am a Gujarati so I read your comment but may be others will not be able to read. If you like to read another .pdf link I had given.

Thanks

Krinna

[RENU KHANNA]

Dear Friends

મેં  આ આર્ટીકલ વાંચ્યો આપણા  શહેરી વડોદરામાં પણ આવી જ  સ્થિતિ મોટાભાગે જોવા મળે છે. શિક્ષણ 6 થી 14 વર્ષ ના બાળકો માટે મફત અને ફરજીયાત છે પરંતુ ઘણી બધી છોકરીઓ (ખાસ કરીને) આ કાયદા થી વંચિત જોવા મળે છે જેમકે Construction site પર છોકરીઓ - મહિલાઓ કામ માટે સ્થળાંતર થઈને શહેરોમાં આવે છે. અને ત્યાં તેમને શિક્ષણ તો નથી મળતું અને આસપાસ ના વાતાવરણ થી તેમના સ્વાસ્થ્ય પર પણ અસર થાય છે. તેમની સાથે કામ કરવું પણ અઘરું છે કારણ કે તેઓ આજે અહિયાં છે તો કાલે બીજે  આ પ્રકારનાં કાર્યમાં જોડાયેલ છોકરા છોકરીઓનું કાયદામાં Special Provizon હોવું જરૂરી છે. 

છોકરીઓ પોતાના નાના નાના ભાઈ બહેનોને સાચવવા માટે શાળાએ જઈ શકતી નથી. તેમની ઈચ્છા શું છે તેનું કોઈ મહત્વ રાખતું નથી આપણા વિસ્તારોમાં સ્થળાંતર નો પ્રશ્ન ઓછો છે પરંતુ શહેરમાં તો છે જ.

Bhavna

SAHAJ - Society for Health Alternatives, Vadodara.

[e-mail]

www.sahaj.org.in

[Krinna Shah]

http://www.unicef.org/india/CPC_Final_English.pdf a resource worth exploring 

[Krinna Shah]

In agreement with Rituu on community conversations and community ownership; I like to call community conversation as dialogue with community (not sure if there is any technical difference). With each stakeholder we must be able to discuss any issue concerning a particular group here being girls. What I find useful is to ask them to help "me/us" understand the situation and tell "me/us" what all should be done to change the situation? It is very crucial to localise the fact around the issue. E.g. yesterday in a police training on sexual offences against children one of the participants told me that here in a rural area of New Delhi environment is different and so on. Similarly while I had interacted with Police/ Gram Panchayat and others each group of people/individual as stakeholder on child marriage the standard responses are: a) "This does not happen here." b) "This happens in a particular  or other community."  c) "It happened in past but not now." I feel that through dialogue we could   facilitate the discussion on local reality/data and deal with myths and misinterpretation.

Secondly, community ownership of the issue is a limited method as I see until there is no response mechanism by the State.  Hence while we strengthen community and prepare it for ownership we should invest in strengthening governance systems.  

Warmly,

Krinna

[Rituu B Nanda]

Dear Bharatesh,

Thanks for raising these issues. Are they a part of any study?

My experience of working with communities is that we need to engage with the entire community . Research shows that awareness campaigns do not lead to behaviour change. Community conversations and community ownership of the issue is extremely important for effective community response. What is your experience?

Warmly,

Rituu