Karnataka's children caught in Covid-19 crossfire

When 15-year-old Lalitha (name changed) returned home from a child care institution (CCI) in March last year, she did not imagine that she would never return to school. Even as her classmates are back in school since January 1 and are preparing for their upcoming Class 10 Board exams, Lalitha joins her mother, an agricultural labourer, at work. She has no time to brood over her shattered dreams of higher education, for another challenge looms large: Marriage.

Parents of this talented teenager in Belagavi’s Khanapur taluk are trying to marry her off as “she is grown up.”

Jagruti, a grassroots organisation, recently prevented one such attempt. However, they couldn't convince Lalitha’s parents to send her back to school.

“We couldn’t save another young girl in the neighbouring village from child marriage. When we approached the officials for intervention they sought evidence. From where can we get the proof of a wedding held in a clandestine manner?” asks Rajeshwari Joshi of Jagruti.

Read | Makkala Gram Sabha: A platform for children

Schools reopening will not mean much to children like Lalitha without earnest efforts to incorporate them into the system.

Karnataka has seen an alarming increase in the number of child marriage attempts during the pandemic, from 1,779 reported cases in 2019 to over 2,262 cases reported in 2020 (February to November) .

Child marriage is just one area where the Covid-19 induced disruption has reversed decades of painstaking work.

Lakhs of children in the state, aged between 11 and 16 years, especially those from vulnerable sections, are at risk of child marriage, child labour or being deprived of schooling permanently.

In 2018-19, Karnataka was among the top three states where most child marriage attempts were reported to Childline.

This year, the evil has surreptitiously spread beyond the North Karnataka, with four districts in the south — Mysuru, Hassan, Chitradurga and Tumakuru — crossing the three digit mark.

For each prevented instance of child marriage there is a corresponding one that has gone unreported, say social workers.

Sunanda Tolbandi, who handles the Childline in Vijayapura, narrates incidents of multiple attempts of child marriage that cause distress to children.

Between April and December last year, 129 cases have been prevented. “Of them, more than 20 young girls have been married off afterwards. But no FIR has been filed,” she says.

Also Read | Education at the doorstep

Bengaluru Child Welfare Committee (CWC) Chairperson Anjali Ramanna has observed a disturbing trend apart from child abuse — a sharp rise in the number of young girls eloping and opting for self-arranged marriages. Most of them move to other districts or states and return after a few months.

She explains the case of a 13-year-old girl who eloped with a boy and was four months pregnant when she returned.

"The access to mobile phones, which her daily wager parents would leave with her for her online classes, loneliness, and the lack of emotional support and mentoring are the primary causes for this," Anjali says.

Hassan district has also seen a similar trend. As CWC member V Geetha says, 50% of the child marriage attempts that were prevented in the district were elopement cases.

Acknowledging the spike in child marriage cases, Karnataka Women and Child Development Minister Shashikala Jolle says that a concerted awareness campaign involving government agencies and other stakeholders will be launched in April.

School as a safety net

Underpinning all of this is the lack of clarity on the efforts to bring children back to school. For instance, the schools are yet to start serving midday meals, one of the main drivers of children to education, as this is the only meal many government school students get in a day.

"Schools are not just centres of learning, but are a support system which provides nutrition and social security as well. The government should on priority identify children who are absent and come up with a multi-pronged approach to bring them back to the fold," says educationist Niranjanaradhya V P. He also warns against the government decisions that cause huge confusion among people.

In Bagalkot district, high school boys who started working to support their parents now find work more interesting than school. "We earn money and with money comes freedom," says 15-year-old Raja (name changed).

Read | Is child protection our priority?

Money also drives Raja and his friends to social vices. Social worker Kumar has seen children gathering near petty shops in small groups every morning chewing gutka. While some of these kids find it difficult to comprehend what is taught online, some don't have a smartphone or TV channels required for online classes.

A recent sample survey in Khanapur taluk shows that 44% of the rural children don't have access to online education.

In Bidar, which has registered the lowest percentage of attendance for the government's Vidyagama programme (4.48%), some children from nomadic communities have switched from schooling to begging. "No support has reached them so far. Some of the girls, even as young as six years, are suffering abuse silently and I am trying to put them in a CCI," a social worker says.

Of the 993 CCIs in the state, just 149 are run by the government or aided by it in some form; the rest (844) are run by NGOs. The number of children at these institutions has dropped by a third, from 34,507 before Covid-19 to just 10,118 at present.

Low attendance

Department of Public Instruction data as on January 12 shows that nearly five lakh government school Class 10 students are not attending offline classes even after 15 days of school reopening. Despite continuous efforts, the Vidyagama programme catering to children from Class 6 to Class 9 has registered an attendance of just 22.31%. Lakhs of children between six and 10 years of age are almost off the radar.

Now the Department of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj is conducting a door-to-door survey to get comprehensive household data.

S R Umashankar, principal secretary, Education Department agrees that child marriage, child labour and tracking migrant children are serious concerns when it comes to getting all students back into the classroom. "We are approaching the issue comprehensively and are confident of having them back in schools. Radio programmes are going on for children below Class 5," he says.

Rishikesh B S, School of Education, Azim Premji University, feels that this is also the right time to implement some of the provisions of the National Education Policy, with a stress on activity-based learning.

"Look through the situation from a child's perspective and make learning joyful through peer engagement and bridge programmes," he says.

Malnutrition

There are also clear signs that Covid-19 has jeopardised Karnataka's modest gains in reducing child malnutrition and it might take years for the government's programmes to get back on track.

Muttamma, 26, in Hospet taluk, says hunger is a bigger challenge for her than Covid-19. This mother of two children regularly visits the neighbourhood anganwadi to ensure that her five-year-old son gets his share of food packet and egg.

He gets just three eggs, despite being allocated eight a month. Being a lactating mother (her second child is one month old), Muttamma gets 10 eggs as against 25 eggs in a month. "Many don't manage to get even this much," she says.

Fifteen days back, some officials visited Muttamma's house and advised her to get her son admitted in a healthcare facility to treat severe acute malnutrition (SAM). But she doesn't know why it is necessary and how this will help.

Taking note of the discrepancy in the egg supply, Shashikala Jolle says the department will soon streamline the process.

Public Health Expert Dr Sylvia Karpagam, who has been organising health camps for the underprivileged sections during Covid-19, has observed symptoms of acute vitamin and nutrition deficiency among children. She feels it will lead to serious long and short term health consequences if immediate action is not taken.

"Apart from an increase in malnutrition and deficiencies of vitamins and minerals, there is an increased risk of child developing diarrhoea and respiratory infections."

Many parents, particularly those of SAM children, are not even aware of the condition of their children and the facilities they are entitled to.

Activists and grassroots workers allege gaps in the supply of midday meal rations and the poor implementation of schemes for pregnant women and integrated child development services.

Given the precarious situation, concerted and urgent efforts from the government are crucial to prevent years of work being laid waste.