I have been unsuccessful in getting a response from my international contacts. Therefore, for this assignment I visited the website www.childhoodpoverty.org.
From this site I chose to take a look at poverty in India.
India Poverty
India has the second largest population under China. With a population in 2001 estimated at 1.03 billion and a total of 260.2 million people living in poverty as of 1999-2000, we can see that the country has a definite poverty issue. The majority of the poverty is located in rural areas. Research shows that this is due to a lack of access to assets, skills, low education and health.
There are approximately 400 million children between the ages of 0-18 years old. Of this amount, 62 million are under the age of 5yrs and are malnourished; another 34% of the newborns are underweight.
Although the country has seen an increase in primary school age enrollment, India still has the largest number of children workers in the world with nearly one third of the children working ages 16 and under. Girls tend to make up more of the work force because they are less likely to receive education and healthcare. India discriminates between the genders. Boys are viewed as permanent members of a family whereas girls are seen as temporary. Girls are more likely to be neglected as children.
From learning about the issues of poverty in India, my heart goes out to these people. From my own experience dealing with families of poverty and the readings I have done, poverty is a cycle that just keeps repeating. In India, the treatment of girls is terrifying. Both genders need to have the education behind them in order to break free. It is so sad that Child Labor Laws are not universal. All children need the opportunity to go to school and learn. My hope is that the India government will keep working on trying to put a stop to poverty. From the site, it sounds like they are making some leaps in the right area, but they still have a long ways to go.
Reading about the number of children affected by poverty in India is astonishing and it is a heart wrenching reality. In this day and age it is hard to believe that girls are treated as less important than boys and considered temporary members of a family. How can a nation consider the education of girls to be unimportant? It makes one wonder what the enforcers of such customs foresee for the nation's future and whether change is possible. We want to believe it is. I am encouraged by the work of organizations such as World Vision who empower people to work together to make a difference in the lives of children in India and around the world (http://www.worldvision.org).
ReplyDeleteI was really struck by the statistics you gave, especially the 34% of infants born underweight. That is such a huge number...and so sad. We are lucky in the United States to have programs such as WIC, that gives nutritious foods to pregnant and nursing mothers, as well as to young children. It shows the role we see in pregnancy and the healthy outcome it has for the infants.
ReplyDeleteTo hear that you viewed the stats from India reminded me of this India woman I worked with and she stated to me that the reason they moved to America was because of the little education her daughters would receive and they also did not have a choice on who they can marry. She wanted her children to have choices in life and to be successful.
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