Child poverty needs policy attention

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Bangalore, Dec 18 (UNI) The Karnataka Human Development Report (HDR) has called for an immediate policy intervention to check child poverty breeding child labour and impacting the human development of the state both individually and the society.

The recently released HDR 2005 said while the incidence of child poverty was about the same both in rural and urban areas across the country, it was 23 per cent in rural Karnataka, with the incidence of urban child poverty being one and a half times that of the rural areas.

The HDR said child poverty would have a lasting adverse impact on the potential for human development. "Children from poor households perform poorly relative to those from non poor households with respect to food security, health and education" the report said. This had policy implications in terms of policy design, regional targeting and budgetary support.

Stating that Child labour was a manifestation of household poverty, which is exploited by employers the report said Karnataka had the second highest child worker participation in South at 13.9 per cent, next only to Andhra Pradesh, which has 17.8 per cent.

The report said though the State intervention on a welfare approach mode with policies concentrating on universal enrolment and retention programmes, the task of rehabilitation had been made endless since the school system had continued to leak fresh droupouts, even as earlier droupouts were rehabilitated.

It said child labour accounted for nearly 50 per cent of agricultural labourers in the state as per the 1991 census, followed by 28.7 per cent as cultivators and eight per cent in the manufcturing, processing and repair section.