Sir,
Children are leaders of our tomorrow. We enjoy their company and uphold their dignity because of the fact they are source of joy in and around. Their innocence need proper feeding and upbringing world over. The reality unearthed about the World’s Children 2012 by the United National Children’s Fund released recently speaks grim scenario. The report reads that hundreds of millions of children living in urban slums are without access to basic services. They are vulnerable to so many risks ranging from violence and exploitation, illness and death that result from living in crowded settlements atop hazardous rubbish dumps. In India children living in slums are among the least likely to attend school.
In our country levels of under nutrition in urban areas continue to be very high particularly in eight cities as reported by National Family Health Survey of India. A survey in Delhi found a primary school attendance rate 54.5 present among children living in slums in 2004-05.
The situation is still bad and are left in the lurch to fend for themselves. Unicef reckons that as much as 97 million people live in one of the nearly 50,000 slums across India. The migration from rural areas to urban areas has compounded this problem. In a few years majority of children would grow up in towns or cities rather than in rural areas. Globally children born in cities already account for 60 percent of the increase in urban population. Better livelihood in cities or towns attract the rural children and the poor that would add to the problem. It is a sad state of affairs when the report estimates that 2.5 million people worldwide have been trafficked into forced labour. Of this some 22 to 50 percent of trafficking victims are children.
We are happy to know that Unicef is doing herculean work in this direction to rid the scourge of exploitation of innocent children. All the member countries need to work whole heartedly to ameliorate the plight of these children in a meaningful manner.
Yours etc…
S N Raina
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