Children with no hope?

Ground realities by Tharuka Dissanaike

Premila, 10, does not carry a lunch box to school. Nor is she given pocket money to buy some goodies. In fact, the young girl often leaves home as early as 6.30 am with nothing but a cup of plain, milk-less black tea in her stomach. It is a kilometer walk to school but the child endures it. She returns home close upon 2.30 pm, having had no meal in between; hoping that her mother would have some warm rice or a roti ready.

But Premila, though an average student, is thankful for the education. The family has ten children. Only Premila and two brothers are sent to school. Her older sister, just 12 has to stay home and tend to the younger siblings while their mother works for daily wage in nearby fields. Their father has been bed-ridden for five years after falling from a tree. An older brother, 15 years, is employed in a shop in the nearby town of Valachchenai to help out the family finances.

Poverty forces many Sri Lankan families to keep their children from completing secondary school. Young school drop-outs are then sent to work in shops, small hotels and at times, as domestic servants in rich city homes.

In Sri Lanka, nearly 40% of the population live below the poverty line- earning less than US$ 50 a month. Such families find it extremely difficult to survive in a country where inflation often climbs in double digits and the cost of living is beyond the means of average wage earners.

Among the most poor sections are the urban shanty-dwellers, subsistence farmers of the arid dry-zone, tea estate labourers and rural fishermen.

These groups of people have the least exposure to health care and free medical services provided by the State, little opportunity or inclination to plan families, their children suffer from under nutrition, stunted growth, lack of education and limited opportunities for suitable employment- recreating the poverty trap of their parents generation.

Despite several decades of state-delivered health and education services, the country has a high incidence of childhood and maternal malnutrition.

One in five new borns are low-birth weight and 23% children suffer from stunted growth, caused by protein deficiency and 37% were underweight (low weight-for-age). (The Demographic Health Survey DHS). Seventy percent (70%) of the population live in areas where iodine deficiency exists and some areas (districts) have shown a goitre prevalence among school children 5-18 years as high as 25-30%.

In response, the Government has initiated a programme for the universal iodization of salt. While young children are often admitted to schools, dire poverty forces parents to cut their education short and employ them in family fields or elsewhere for a wage. Even children who are schooling are often required to help out in agriculture and family businesses.

Childhood diseases can take a deathly toll on poor families who are unable to seek medical attention on time due to lack of education or want to money to travel to the nearest hospital.

Poverty also forces parents to take the harsh decision to send children into domestic servitude. Children, thus employed, are often ill-treated, underfed and physically abused by their employers.