MINOR ISSUES IN MAJOR CITIES Child Vulnerabilities in Urban Slums September 2016 Neeti Daftari THE AANGAN TRUST 1 MINOR ISSUES IN MAJOR CITIES Child Vulnerabilities in Urban Slums ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Neeti Daftari Author and Head Researcher Neeti has been associated with The Aangan Trust since 2004 in various different capacities, and is currently Head - Knowledge and Impact. Along with being a qualified Clinical Psychologist, she is a Commonwealth Scholar and has a Master’s degree in Social Policy & Development from the London School of Economics. With core expertise in child rights and protection, Neeti’s experience spans program design, project management, monitoring and evaluation, program scale- up, and advocacy. She has also undertaken significant national-level social policy and programmatic research for statutory bodies, national and international NGOs. She has been awarded numerous international fellowships, and is an international trainer and facilitator in human rights. Field Researchers 1 Adyasha Mahanti - Sonaghar Madhavi Kalbele - Pritampur Sharib Mohammad - Amalganj Dipika Rohra - Darukhana Santosh Kanaujia - Sultankot 1 Some community location names have been changed to protect identities and maintain confidentiality THE AANGAN TRUST 2 MINOR ISSUES IN MAJOR CITIES Child Vulnerabilities in Urban Slums FOREWORD As this powerful study notes: “India’s heaving cities epitomize disparity… the poverty of many is …obscured by the flashy display of the wealthy few”. One aspect of this obscurity is the dramatic neglect of egregious child protection issues pervasive in urban India. As rural to urban migration accelerates, so does the concentration of extreme poverty and child vulnerability within cities. Over half the children living amongst the urban poor are stunted, over one third do not attend school and chronic exposure to violence, crime, and sexual and labor exploitation are endemic. At a time when cities all over India are embracing global corporate culture including gleaming high tech offices and luxurious residential and recreational facilities with a vengeance, this bleak backdrop of child suffering, deprivation and abuse is not just evidence of complacency but of complicity. The political and civic will necessary to reverse this dire status quo depends on a range of factors. Key among them is the production of compelling and evidence based arguments that dispassionately document what is wrong or not working and that rationally address and describe strategies for change. Aangan’s new study is a masterly contribution to this urgent process. With impressive clarity and meticulous care, “Minor Issues in Major Cities” marshals a wealth of new quantitative and qualitative data gathered from five urban slum neighbourhoods in as many states. From Bhubaneswar to Patna, Varanasi, Bhopal and Mumbai, the report documents the interwoven factors that contribute to child vulnerability and the key resources needed to reverse it. Drawing on a holistic public health model that combines issues of physical safety, access to healthcare, familial and relational support and social and economic rights, the report builds a rigorous and comprehensive picture of what is needed to move forward in the field of child protection in urban India today. It combines quantitative analysis with powerful qualitative reporting. We learn that 75% of children experience verbal and physical abuse within their homes and that most of their families are unable to afford their basic needs. We read about children hacked to death because of a father’s debt, or under-vaccinated because of the inaccessibility of primary health care or eating from garbage dumps. But we also learn of innovative and strategic solutions – from the construction of makeshift collective usage toilets to afford girls a modicum of sanitation safety and privacy, to participatory approaches that give children a say and build collective negotiating strength, to integrated child programming that sets a high goal but needs more robust and coordinated support to fully succeed. The product of meticulous research and intelligent editing, “Minor Issues in Major Cities” is an invaluable tool and data source for those concerned with one of the most egregious and complex human rights challenges facing contemporary India today. I commend it to all those eager to contribute to a more equitable and inclusive future for India’s cities and the millions of children for whom they are home. Jacqueline Bhabha FXB Director of Research; Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights Harvard University, Cambridge, MA THE AANGAN TRUST 3 MINOR ISSUES IN MAJOR CITIES Child Vulnerabilities in Urban Slums PREFACE Aangan’s preoccupation with preventing child harm started when we first came face to face with traumatized children in government shelter homes. These were children who had seen and experienced brutality, exploitation, abandonment, loss - more tragedy than any human being, and certainly no child, should ever have to know about let alone experience. As our work deepened over the years and spread across 16 states where we worked with state governments to implement standards of care that might somehow mitigate the harm done and restore children back to family and to wholeness, we knew that what we were dealing with was just the tip of the iceberg. So when children we were working with went back home, we started to follow some of them in order to understand what had brought them here to begin with. We wanted to know what could have been done to prevent harm in the first place, and what we could do to prevent its recurrence. What followed were community programs in urban bastis (slum settlements) with groups of adolescent girls and boys, engagement with their families and all too often inert government authorities. We gained a deep understanding of the ways in which family vulnerability and insecurity, social exclusion, the lack of access to even the most basic services, all came together to create situations of extreme risk for children. We learned how heavily stacked the odds are against children raised in families forever poised on the brink of catastrophe, in fractured communities battling for survival on contested land, adopting strategies to subsist that more often than not drove them further into ruin. City governance structures are complicated labyrinths where multiple authorities exist and accountability is opaque, rendering them impenetrable and unapproachable especially to those most desperately in need. Moreover, there is resistance to acknowledging the monumental scale of the problems poor people face. Over the years, we have found ourselves far too many times trying to convince a city official who refuses to accept that a particular child protection violation – for example, and most notably, child marriage – is rampant in cities and actually does warrant the allocation of personnel and resources to combat it. Far too many times we have found ourselves hitting a stonewall as we try to convince a policy maker that urban slum settlements are today both the source as well as the destination for child trafficking, and require interventions that account for this. The urban slum is a dangerous place for a child to grow up in. We believe that what is first required is the recognition of these settlements as high-risk locations – ‘hotspots’ of child harm. This study is intended to do that. Atiya Bose Executive Director, The Aangan Trust THE AANGAN TRUST 4 MINOR ISSUES IN MAJOR CITIES Child Vulnerabilities in Urban Slums CONTENTS 1. Introduction: Setting the Context................................................................ 6 2. Theoretical Framework: The SAFE Model................................................... 13 3. The Process: Research Methodology, Objectives and Approach............... 16 4. Data Analysis: Urban Poor Neighbourhoods (I) Sonaghar, Bhubaneswar..................................................................................... 22 (II) Pritampur, Bhopal............................................................................................... 41 (III) Amalganj, Patna ................................................................................................. 65 (IV) Darukhana, Mumbai............................................................................................ 90 (V) Sultankot, Varanasi............................................................................................. 119 5. Conclusion: The Big Picture......................................................................... 148 6. The Way Forward: Towards a Secure Urban Childhood.............................. 156 7. Appendices: SAFE Tool Quantitative Data (I) Appendix 1: Sonaghar, Bhubaneswar................................................................. 164 (II) Appendix 2: Pritampur, Bhopal........................................................................... 176 (III) Appendix 3: Amalganj, Patna ............................................................................. 189 (IV) Appendix 4: Darukhana, Mumbai....................................................................... 201 (V) Appendix 5: Sultankot, Varanasi........................................................................ 213 THE AANGAN TRUST 5 MINOR ISSUES IN MAJOR CITIES Child Vulnerabilities in Urban Slums INTRODUCTION SETTING THE CONTEXT THE AANGAN TRUST 6 MINOR ISSUES IN MAJOR CITIES Child Vulnerabilities in Urban Slums The number of children growing up in urban of poverty differs from one slum to the