General- Highlights of the Report ‘Children in India 2012- A Statistical Appraisal’- Part 2

Highlights of the Report ‘Children in India 2012- A Statistical Appraisal’-Part 2

During the period between NFHS 2 (1998-99) & NFHS 3 (2005-06), decline has been observed for stunting and underweight among children under 3 years of age,  whereas the percentage of children wasted has increased.

Higher is the percentage of underweight female children (< 5 years) than male children, whereas females are in a slighlty better position compared to male children  (< 5 years) while considering stunting and wasting.

The NFHS 3 (2005-06) results also indicates that malnutrition is more prevalent among children in the higher birth order category.

The rural India is witnessing more malnutrition among children < 5 years as higher  percentage of stunted, wasted and underweight children were reported from rural  areas.

High malnutrition of all types prevails  in the group of illiterate mothers and  mother’s with less than 5 year’s education.

Malnutrition among children is highest for underweight mothers.

The percentage of underweight children in the lowest wealth index category  (56.6%) is nearly 3 times higher than that in the highest wealth index category  (19.7%).

The States with more than 50 percent children under five years of age underweight are Madhya Pradesh (60%), Jharkhand (56.5%) and Bihar (55.9%).

District level Household Survey (DLHS -3 2007-08) shows only 40.5% children are  fortunate to be breastfed within one hour of child birth.

Among male and female children (6-59 months) the percentage of children with any  anaemia was reported as 69% and 69.9% respectively, severe anaemia was reported  for 3.2 % male children and 2.7% female children.

Anaemia was more prevalent in Rural areas (71.5%), than Urban areas (63%).

For 81.9% severely anaemic mothers, their children were anaemic whereas 61.5 %  mothers without anaemia reported anaemia among children.

Percentage of children with severe anaemia among severe anaemia mothers was  nearly seven times higher than that among mothers not anaemic.

About 76.4% of children (6-59 months) in  the lowest wealth index are suffering from anaemia whereas 56.2% children of the highest wealth index are suffering from anaemia.

Anaemia prevalence among children of (6-59 months) is more than 70 percent in  Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh,  Karnataka and Jharkhand. Anaemia prevalence among children of (6-59 months) is  less than 50 percent in Goa, Manipur, Mizoram, and Kerala. For the remaining States, the anaemia prevalence is in the range of 50% - 70%.

As per Statistics of school education,  2009-10, there are 14.49  lakhs educational  institutions in the Country.

About 89% teachers in the Higher Secondary Schools/ Junior Colleges were trained  whereas the corresponding level in High /Post Basic Schools, Middle/ Sr.Basic  School and Pre-Primary/Primary/ Jr.Basic School are 90%, 88% and 86%  respectively.

Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) at primary level is high at 115%, and Net Enrolment  Ratio (NER) has improved significantly from 84.5% in 2005- 06 to 98% in 2009-10.

High GER at primary level, however, indicates the presence of over-age and under age children, possibly due to early and late enrolment or repetition. During this period, Net enrolment ratio (NER) at Primary level has shown improvement in most of the State / UTs of the country

GER at upper primary level is low, but had shown considerable improvement of 16.8 percentage points in the four years between 2005 and 2009. NER at upper primary is a cause of concern. It varies from 35.76% in Sikkim to 90.51% in Tamil Nadu. Thus, although more children are entering the education system, many are not  progressing through the system. Upper  primary NER at 58.3% gives a clear indication of the ground to be covered.

The share of girls in the total enrolment at primary and upper primary level was  19% and 46.5% respectively in the year 2005-06; this increased to 48.5 and 48.1 at  primary and upper primary levels respectively in 2009-10.

In general, at the national level, the number of girls enrolled in all levels, i.e.  primary, secondary and higher education is less than their counterparts. However,  the female-male ratio in education has been steadily improving over the years. In  primary education, the GPI ratio has gone up from 0.76 in 1990-91 to 1.00 in 2009 -10 showing 31.6% increase and in secondary education the increase is from 0.60 in  1990-91 to 0.88 in 2009-10 thereby showing 46.7% increase.

The Census found an increase in the number of child labourers from 11.28 million  in 1991 to 12.66 million in 2001.

The major occupations engaging child labour are Pan, Bidi & Cigarettes (21%), Construction (17%), Domestic workers (15%) and Spinning & weaving (11%).

As per census 2001, Uttar Pradesh (15.22%) recorded the highest share of child labour in the country, followed by Andra Pradesh (10.76%), Rajasthan (9.97%), Bihar (8.82%), Madhya Pradesh (8.41%), and West Bengal (6.77%).

There is considerable increase in the absolute number of child labour between 1991  and 2001 in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Bihar,  West Bengal, Haryana, Uttaranchal, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Nagaland, Assam,  Meghalaya, and Delhi, whereas the States of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya  Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Orissa, Gujarat and Kerala have shown significant  decline in the number of child labour.

Sikkim had the highest Work Participation Rate (WPR) in the country with 12.04 %  child labourers among total children in the age group of 5-14 years, followed by  Rajasthan 8.25 % and Himachal Pradesh  (8.14%) during 2001. The other states  having higher than the national average of 5 percent WPR for children are Andhra Pradesh (7.7%), Chattisgarh (6.96%), Karnataka (6.91%), Madhya Pradesh (6.71%),  J&K (6.62%), Arunachal Pradesh (6.06%), Jharkhand and Assam (5.07%). 

As per the NFHS -3 (2005-06), nearly 11.8% children age 5-14 years works either for their own household or for somebody else.

The very young children (age 5-7 years), both boys and girls, are mainly doing Unpaid work for someone who is not a member of their household. The older boys age 12-14 are mainly engaged in paid work or family work, whereas girls in this age group are involved mainly in household chores or family work.

Notably, at all ages, girls are more likely than boys to be doing chores and boys are  more likely than girls to be working for someone who is not a member of the  household or doing other family work.

Rural children age 5-14 years (12.9%) are more likely to be engaged in work than  their urban counterparts (8.6%).

The percentage of children  engaged in work activities decreases steadily with  mother’s increasing education, father’s increasing education, and increasing wealth  quintile. One in every 7 children in the lowest and second lowest wealth index  category is working.

It is alarming that, in 2011, the Crimes against children reported a 24% increase  from the previous year with a total of  33,098 cases of crimes against Children  reported in the country during 2011 as compared to 26,694 cases during 2010.

The State of Uttar Pradesh accounted for 16.6% of total crimes against children at  national level in 2011, followed by Madhya Pradesh (13.2%), Delhi (12.8%), knowlegde-Maharashtra (10.2%), Bihar (6.7%) and Andra Pradesh (6.7%).

In 2011, among the IPC crimes, an increase of 43% was registered in Kidnapping  and Abduction, while rape cases were increased by 30%, Procuration of minor girls  recorded an increase of 27% and Foeticide reported an increase of 19% over 2010. In 2011, Buying of girls for Prostitution showed a decline of 65%, and selling of  girls for Prostitution reported decline of 13% compared to 2010. Infanticide showed  a decline of 37 points during this period.

The States of Uttar Pradesh and Delhi together accounted for 47.6% kidnapping and  abduction of children reported in the Country.