New Delhi: Children in cities and towns are excluded from vital services. Urbanization leaves hundreds of millions of children deprived of opportunities, facilities, freedom and dignity.
A national level consultation held in New Delhi on June 16, in which dozens of civil society representatives and children participated, called for a comprehensive Children’s Act and detailed child centered plan of action.
The consultation was initiated by Razia Ismail, the convener of the India Alliance for Child Rights. KarunaBishnoi, a well known child right advocate moderated the sessions.
One Comprehensive Law for Children
According to the participants, cities are burdened by laws that do not match the prevailing urban reality. Worse still, the capacity to enforce laws and regulations that are already in place is often lacking. Municipal authorities often have limited access to specialist legislative expertise, and struggle to respond to these situations.
The multiplicity and rigidity of laws and regulations compel citizens in cities to pursue informal routes to conduct land and property transactions, to do business, to acquire means of a livelihood, and even to access basic services.
As a result, parallel systems flourish and urban legal informality becomes the norm. The worst sufferers are children. Parents have to go from pillar to post to get even a simple thing done.
Greater urbanization is inevitable. In a few years, the majority of children will grow up in towns or cities rather than in rural areas. Children born in cities already account for 60 percent of the increase in urban population. According to Dhunu Roy of Hazards Center 40 to 45 percent of urban children live in slums.
Children and the Silent Emergency
Today, an increasing number of children living in slums and shantytowns are among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in the world, deprived of the most basic services and denied the right to thrive. “There is a silent emergency hovering over our slums,” said Ismail.
Children, according to her, need planned interventions. The indoor air pollution is as dangerous as outdoor air pollution. “We need to invest in understanding. Without data how can we plan? We should speak more about smart children than smart cities.
Prof. (Dr) Mahaveer Jain wondered whether there was planned move in shifting children from villages to cities. A child labor in cities becomes eight times more productive than when he is in the village. Throwing open the “family enterprise” in the proposed child labor bill for working children then become another excuse for exploiting children.
The young Kanupriya from Bhopal, the editor of Peace Gong spoke about the invisibility of children, and especially children who are differently abled. Other child leaders raised the issue of addiction by children.
Excluding these children in slums not only robs them of the chance to reach their full potential; it robs their societies of the economic benefits of having a well-educated, healthy urban population.
Disparities Galore
Cities offer many children the advantages of urban schools, clinics and playgrounds. Yet the same cities the world over are also the settings for some of the greatest disparities in children’s health, education and opportunities.
Infrastructure and services are not keeping up with urban growth in many regions and children’s basic needs are not being met. Families living in poverty often pay more for substandard services. Water, for instance, can cost 50 times more in poor neighborhoods where residents have to buy it from private vendors than it costs in wealthier neighborhoods where households are connected directly to water mains.
The deprivations endured by children in poor urban communities are often obscured by broad statistical averages that lump together all city dwellers – rich and poor alike.
When averages such as these are used in making urban policy and allocating resources, the needs of the poorest can be overlooked.
Smart Cities? But Not Very Smart Assumptions
Dunu Roy has serious questions on the assumptions of the smart cities. One assumption is there will be incubators in every city which will churn out 1,000 start ups each in all the 100 smart cities creating a million jobs. Meanwhile in the entire country there have only been 800 start ups so far.
According to Roy Smart cities will displace more people than they will actually employ. “Does smart mean cunning or does it mean prudent and efficient,” he wanted to know.
What the so called world class cities will do to children is take away their spaces, said, Dr Sudeshna Chatterjee of Action for Children’s Environments (ACE). Houses will go vertical. Huts will give way to high rise flats. Lifts will not work, as seen in similar experimental flats in Mumbai. Children will be confided to their flats. Girls will rarely move out. Play will give way to more controlled sports. Garbage will be thrown down from flats above.
Who Lives in Slums?
Nidhin Donald NCDHR (National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights) wanted the nation to move away from the “binary concept of urban rich versus urban poor” to recognize that a large number of dalits, bahujans and Muslim live in the slums. The urban environment allows them to democratize public spaces.
He reminded us of the campaigns initiated by Ayyankali in Kerala a hundred years ago and the Wadar Community of masons in Maharashtra who escaped the oppression of Patels in their villages to become a formidable force in the cities and towns of Maharashtra.
Sarabjit Singh of UNICEF, New Delhi dwelt on the issue of resilience required by urban children. He said one third of our districts are affected by armed conflicts making people flee from their villages to cities. One third of districts are affected by drought and forcing the poor to go to cities. A third of our districts are also frequent sources of migration.
It is rural people with the same set of values and beliefs being transplanted to cities. So child marriage is as rampant in the urban slums as in the villages.
Making cities fit for children
A focus on equity is crucial – one in which priority is given to the most disadvantaged children wherever they live. Governments put children at the heart of urban planning and to extend and improve services for all. To start, more focused, accurate data are needed to help identify disparities among children in urban areas and how to bridge them. The shortage of such data is evidence of the neglect of these issues.
While governments at all levels can do more, community-based action is also a key to success. Effective partnerships with the urban poor including children and adolescents are required. Provide services and create protected areas so children can have the safer and healthier childhoods they deserve.
Urbanization is a fact of life and we must invest more in cities, focusing greater attention on providing services to the children in greatest need.
Intervening in the discussions Augustine Veliath, director Asian Center for Entertainment Education, said, “We need child friendly law makers. Our MPs, MLAs, and Municipal Corporators need sound footing in the rights and entitlements of children. Many of them are not trainable. Therefore we the citizens must take upon ourselves in making our elected representatives child friendly in their attitudes, word and above all actions.”