Childhood poverty in India

Since I still have not heard back from those international professionals I attempted to contact, I selected to learn about childhood poverty in India from http://www.childhoodpoverty.org.   Here are some of the insights that I learned about India.

In India, drought and environmental deterioration have significantly undermined livelihoods and exacerbated poverty.   Responses to these contribute to poverty cycles that include pressures on children to work, undermining their education and health.   Children from 10-15 percent of households migrate for work, usually with parents, but sometimes alone.   Income from migrant children's work constituted up to 45 percent of the poorest households' income.  India accounts for 20 percent of the world's out-of-school children.  It has the largest numbers of working children in the world, with nearly a third of children below 16 years working.

The focus in India is to get the children from poor families into primary schools, increase the retention rate so that more children finish primary grades, and upgrade the quality of the schooling they receive.  In health, the country is facing high rates of communicable diseases, malnutrition, and maternal and perinatal illnesses, predominantly among poor people.  Almost half of all children under the age of five are malnourished and 34 percent of new-borns are significantly underweight.

Gender biases limit girls' life chances.  The cycle of disadvantage starts at birth and continues through childhood to motherhood and the next generation.  It is reflected in the inferior health and educational status of women, the high maternal mortality rate, the neglect of the girl child, the declining sex ratio, and girl's lower rates of school enrolment and subsequent higher participation in the child labor force.

These insights have shown me that poverty around the world looks very different.  In the United States, we have laws limiting child workers, requiring school attendance, and protecting gender equality.