As testified by several national and international reports and surveys of child rights organisations and development agencies, India has arguably the worst child neglect and abuse record worldwide. Rutaksha Rawat investigates • January 18. Two-year-old Falak was admitted into the trauma centre of AIIMS, New Delhi. Abandoned by her sex worker mother, she was battered, beaten and left for dead. Two months later, on March 19 she succumbed to her injuries. • February 21. Six-year-old Pankaj, a kindergartener of Rajkul Senior School in Haryana’s Karnal district, was locked in a bathroom for several hours by his school teacher for not completing his homework. He fell ill and died after 55 days. • March 29. Thirteen-year-old Munni was rescued by an NGO from the home of an affluent doctor couple in Delhi. Munni was beaten, denied food and made to work 18 hours per day. • April 11. Two-month-old Hina’s short life was cruelly snuffed out by her father who beat and burnt her with cigarette butts because of his aversion for girl children. These shocking cases of child abuse which have attracted 60-point newspaper headlines and prime time television coverage for their unbelievable cruelty and brutality over the past four months, have dramatically highlighted the gross institutional, societal and parental neglect of children in India. But these horror stories are just the tip of the iceberg. Child neglect and abuse is widespread in this nation of 1.2 billion people, of whom 480 million are children below 18 years. As testified by several national and international reports and surveys of child rights organisations and development agencies, India has arguably the worst child neglect and abuse record worldwide. The World Bank estimates that “about 49 percent of the world’s underweight children, 34 percent of the world’s stunted children and 46 percent of the world’s wasted children live in India”. A United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) report titled State of the World’s Children 2012 (SWC 2012), released on February 28, focusing on the well-being of “children in the urban world”, estimates that over 40 percent of all children (including rural children) in India suffer chronic poverty and deprivation. SWC 2012 reveals that the under-five mortality rate is 63 per 1,000 births, 43 percent of children are underweight, and 48 percent are moderately to severely stunted, and only 49 percent of girl children and 59 percent boys complete secondary school (see box, p. 88). A global survey of 200 nations, SWC 2012 identifies lack of access to health; water, sanitation and hygiene; education and protection as prime indicators of child rights deprivation. Damning as is SWC 2012, data collected from domestic sources reveal that ground realities are worse. According to the 2010-11 report of the Union ministry of women and child development, 170 million of India’s children are in need of care and protection, 1.8 million die before age five, a shocking 79 percent of children are anaemic at birth, 50.76 percent suffer sexual abuse, 68.99 percent physical abuse, 65 percent of school-going children suffer corporal punishment, and 29 percent never attend school.…
