Poor children in urban areas ignored by policymakers: UN Report

NEW DELHI: Disadvantaged children living in cities have been largely ignored by policy makers, says the 2012 State of the World’s Children report of the UNICEF release. In India, nearly 70 per cent of the slum population are concentrated in Maharashtra (35 per cent), Andhra Pradesh (11 per cent), West Bengal (10 per cent), Tamil Nadu and Gujarat (7 per cent each), according to the UN Report. The children living in these slums do not have access health services and benefi t little from the social schemes. The report calls upon law makers to reach out to such children who often are not registered at birth and lack safe shelter as well as suffi cient nutrition. Mumbai has maximum number of slum dwellers in India. Nearly 60 per cent of Mumbai’s slum population lives in 8 per cent of land. Children born in cities across the world already account for 60 per cent of the increase in urban population. The challenges face by children in urban areas are: Insuffi cient access to water and sanitation; hunger and malnutrition rates, heightened risk of road traffi c injuries; inadequate shelter, mounting risks of respiratory illness, asthma and lead poisoning; risk of forced labour, child traffi cking. The UNICEF report says that the matter was complicated by the fact many children living in urban poverty are not registered at birth, making them virtually invisible to lawmakers. According to the UN agency, more than onethird of children in urban slum areas go unregistered at birth. This number rises to half of all children in urban parts of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. UNICEF brings out this assessment annually. Each year, the report focuses on a particular theme. The title of the 2012 report is ‘Children in an Urban World’.