Most BPL families 'don't know', 'can't say' on basic issues

During a survey recently all that they could say about their life was - “No response, Don’t Know, Can’t Say.”

Formation of the Human Rights Commission in the State in 2007 could also do nothing to change their life, said Karnataka State Human Rights Commission Justice S R Nayak  at the State-level consultation on Child Rights Implementation in North Karnataka - Community Feedback here on Friday.

The consultation was held with regard to a survey conducted by Child Rights Trust (CRT) in March, April and May this year across 12 districts of North Karnataka, where 350 households in each district were questioned.

It was found that a majority of people could not even explain or answer some of the basic questions about their occupation, income, birth certificate, age of marriage, problems faced by children and devastating effects of the flood.

Elaborating the highlights of the survey CRT Trustee Dr R Padmini said they are yet to draw their findings on the report. She said: “We still don’t know why there were so many ‘No response’ and ‘Don’t know’ ‘Can’t say’ in the data as the questions asked were sensitive to the people.

Most of them do not even know the age of their children.” She said there are no real reasons why people do not respond to the questions on these sensitive issues. Probably they are scared to reveal personal details, she speculated.