Forgotten voices The world of urban children in India www.pwc.in Preface “...in serving the best interests of children, we serve the best interests of all humanity.” - Carol Bellamy, Former Executive Director, UNICEF In recent years, India has captured the attention of the global community for its promising and steady economic growth coupled with a high proportion of young population. Urbanisation holds key if the country has to emerge as the next superpower. With 37% of future adults in the country, of whom, 120 million will be living in urban spaces, mainly in slums, on and off the streets as well as in shelters, this number will only grow and is estimated to reach around 180 million by 2030. For the urban deprived children, access to basic services such as clean water, toilets, decent education is a daily struggle. Lack of legal identity forces them to stay out of schools and deprives them of basic facilities such as health centres, proper nutrition and right to play among others. Insufficient protection measures make them vulnerable to all kinds of harassment and abuses, often inflicted by adults. Girls especially fall prey to archaic beliefs, forcing them to abandon their studies, stay restricted within the confines of their homes and subject themselves to physical exploitation, while spending their entire life fulfilling gender-specific duties. In all, for these children, one form of deprivation leads to another. It is time that we hear their side of the story. While looking at children as a demographic factor, we need to specifically strive to address the needs of millions of such children. We must protect them from physical as well as emotional threats and provide them with nourishment and good education so that they grow up as healthy citizens who contribute to the betterment of society. It is with this thought that PwC and Save the Children came together to develop a cohesive and an in-depth report on issues important to children living in urban areas. In order to understand these wide-ranging themes and suggest possible solutions, we brought together a team of expert authors, guided by an advisory board consisting of representatives of academic as well as research institutions, NGOs and UN agencies. For our analysis, we have drawn from the best sources and proactively engaged with children in order to understand their perspective and have subsequently tried to capture that succinctly for you, our readers. The report suggests practical solutions that government schemes such as the ‘smart city’ can implement for an inclusive, child-friendly and equitable urban development. It is heartening to witness that the new government has launched several urban development initiatives, thus, recognising the importance of cities in the country’s overall growth and development. Our endeavour, through this report, is to initiate a vigorous discussion on how these ‘forgotten voices’ can be heard. This can take place only when we have your support to sustain this debate and look at creative ways to implement some of the suggestions that this report highlights. “I dream for a world which is free of child labour, a world in which every child goes to school. A world in which every child gets his rights.”- Kailash Satyarthi, Nobel Peace Prize winner Deepak Kapoor Harpal Singh Chairman Chairman PwC India Save the Children India Photo credit: Prasanth Vishwanathan/ Save the Children 4 PwC - Save the Children Letter from the ministry Forgotten voices: The world of urban children in India 5 Contents Preface 3 Letter from the ministry 5 Did you know? 8 Executive summary 10 Urbanisation and urban life in India: An overview 16 • Urbanisation and urban poverty: India and the world 17 • Slums: The underbelly in Indian cities 18 • Concepts and definitions 21 • Urbanisation trends in India: An analysis 28 • Child population in urban India 28 • Urban poverty 28 • Crimes in cities 33 • Conclusion 33 Urban governance 34 • Introduction 34 • Child-friendly cities 34 • Urban governance system in India: An overview 35 • Urban finances: An overview 40 • Urban programmes aimed at meeting these challenges 41 • Gaps in urban governance: How is the urban child affected? 43 • Good practices and possible solutions to the problems of urban governance 44 • Recommendations 46 Health, nutrition and WASH: The interconnections 48 Health of children in poor urban settings 50 • Introduction 50 • Public health conditions in Indian cities 52 • Child health in urban India: A historical backdrop 56 • Child sex ratio 59 • Healthcare burden 64 • Current situation: Key challenges 66 • Efforts undertaken to deal with the challenges 68 • Conclusion 73 • Recommendations 73 Malnutrition among children in urban India 74 • Introduction 74 • Nutrition situation in urban India: An overview 74 • Implications of undernutrition on overall development 81 • Immediate causes of undernutrition 83 • Underlying factors contributing to undernutrition in children 88 • Addressing malnutrition in urban India: The way forward 91 WASH in urban areas 96 • Introduction 96 • Water and sanitation in urban areas 98 • Policies and programmes for urban water and sanitation 109 • Conclusion 110 Education of urban children 112 • Overall context, including policy and legal framework 112 • Access, equity and quality: A trend analysis 114 • Gender analysis 121 • Challenges of schooling in urban context 123 • Possibilities and good practices 126 • Conclusion 127 • Recommendations 127 Child protection in urban India 128 • Introduction 128 • Sites of Vulnerability 128 • Measuring vulnerability 136 • The protective cover: Mechanisms of the state 141 • Data gaps and impediments to planning 144 • Conclusion 144 • Recommendations 145 Urban resilience and rights of children in India 146 • Urban risk scenario 146 • Urban resilience 147 • Visible environmental phenomena that affect children 148 • Protecting children’s rights in times of disasters 149 • International processes and protocols 151 • Recommendations 152 Conclusion 154 Methodology 160 Glossary 161 Acronyms 166 Endnotes 171 Photo credit: Anna Kari/Save the Children Urban environment According to the World Health Organisation’s list Population of 30 most polluted cities in the world, The current population density 15 are in India with of Mumbai is already 10 times than that of New York. Delhi topping the list. Nearly one in every six urban Indian residents lives in a slum. Around 41.2 million children in the age group of 0 to 6 live in urban areas. Every eighth urban child (0 to 6 years) in India lives in slums. More than 8.1 million children live in slums. There was a decline in birth of nearly 3 million girls as opposed to 2 million boys during 2001-11. Around 47% of the children of the urban poor are malnourished. 8 PwC - Save the Children Did you know Poverty Education and protection The share of the urban Sixty-eight per cent of street children are poor in the total number illiterate and 40% work in the unorganised of poor in India is sector. growing and is now There are 13,21,424 child labourers in close to 27%. urban India (Census 2001 data). Thirty-five per cent of India’s street children are dealing with substance abuse. The states of Uttar Pradesh and Delhi together accounted for 47.6% of the cases of kidnapping and abduction of children reported in the country. In urban areas, out of 1,000 girls, only 14 reach Class 12. Twenty-nine per cent of girls in urban areas are victims to child marriages and this trend is increasing. In urban areas of India, only half of the girls between 15 and 17 years of age attend school. Forgotten voices: The world of urban children in India 9 Executive summary Background That is more than the combined population of the five north-eastern states: Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram. The urban century UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children 2012 report states, By 2040-50, urban India will constitute a 50% share in the “The children living in around 49,000 slums in India are total population of the country. Also, its share in India’s GDP invisible”. Half of these slums are located across the five will grow to 75% by 2030.1 states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Tamil Though the share of the country’s urban population to its total Nadu and Gujarat.7 population is still at 31% (Census 2011), urban India has grown While tremendous progress has been made on the ‘hardware’ five times since 1961 in terms of population. India is going front in terms of developing city infrastructure, not enough through a crucial phase of transition, from being a predominantly attention has been paid to the ‘software’ of these cities, rural country to one where a majority of the people aspire to live especially for its young citizens. Children in urban India, in cities. For the first time in history, Census 2011 highlighted especially those from disadvantaged sections—slum as well that the net decadal addition to the population during 2001-111 as street children, orphans, and people with disabilities are was more in urban than in the rural areas, thus marking the susceptible to scenarios such as ill-health, poor access to beginning of a demographic shift. This trend will be an ongoing water and sanitation, insufficient education, urban disasters process with 600 million people expected to reside in urban and child protection and safety concerns. areas by 2030 as compared to 377 million in 2011.2 The opportunity that urbanisation presents lies in designing While the number of people residing in urban India is on the the right governance structures, investing adequately to rise, equally alarming is the rise in the number of the urban facilitate this growth and ensuring inclusive growth. A child- poor. Standing at no less than 76 million, the burgeoning friendly city is one that has a system of local governance, size of the urban poor cannot be ignored.