Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Centre

 

I chose to study the website designated for the Child Poverty Research and Policy Centre.

The website offers insights by sharing personalized stories of children affected by poverty. The website also offers data from different counties to compare one with the other.The case study that caught my attention was that of a 16 year old young girl named Laxmi who was married at 10 and whose dream is to become a teacher. According to the website 40 % of children in developing countries suffer from malnutrition. At current rates of improvement, 1 billion children's mental development will be affected by malnutrition by 2020 (UN James Commission).

Below, is Laxmi’s case study

 Daily routine

Laxmi gets up at 5 a.m and gets ready for the day. She then studies from 7 till 9 a.m. and goes to school at 9.30 a.m. together with her younger brother who attends the same school. She returns home at 5 p.m. and fetches water from the hand pump. Once she has done that, Laxmi makes evening tea for her family, plays with her nephew and studies for a few hours before going to bed.

Family life

Laxmi’s family is relatively well off compared to other families in the district. Her father is a farmer who owns 15 bighas¹ of land, 10 goats and a buffalo. However, the harvest is poor as his land cannot be irrigated. The drying up of the nearby Banas river has meant that people depend heavily on the open wells in the village: this has led to the water table becoming lower, which has put a stop to the pumping of water for irrigation.
Laxmi has two brothers and a sister. Her younger brother goes to school and is in Class IX². Laxmi’s elder brother grazes the family livestock and goes to the market to sell milk. He carries 6 kilograms of milk in cans to the market on his bicycle and sells it at 12 Rupees per kilogram. Thanks to his earnings from milk sales, Laxmi’s brother contributes around 2000 Rupees³ a month to the household income.
Laxmi’s elder sister never went to school and was married 6 years ago. However, she has been living with her parents for the last two years as her husband has severe psychological problems, and her parents are now planning to arrange a second marriage for her⁴.

Married at an early age

When Laxmi was only 10 years old and studying in Class V, she was married off to Shivnarain, a boy from another village in Tonk district, on the same day that her elder sister was married. Her gauna (formal send-off), however, has yet to take place. Laxmi’s parents say that they will send her off only when Shivnarain has secured a job. Shivnarain has completed Class X and has also passed the entrance examinations for the Central Reserve Police Force; he is now awaiting his call letter.

Valuing education

Despite her early marriage, Laxmi’s parents continued to send her to school and she is now studying in Class XI⁵. Laxmi’s father is keen for her to study further: he has relatives whose daughters are educated and wishes for his own daughter to become like them. Laxmi’s parents can be considered relatively progressive in that they actively support her continuing education and they let her cycle to school in another village⁶. In addition, Laxmi’s parents-in-law do not object if she chooses to study further, which is fortunate as Laxmi herself wants to obtain a Bachelor’s degree and become a teacher. She has already been practicing for her future career by teaching her friend Chandrakala, who is from a poor family and did not attend school. Laxmi values her education because it makes her feel more confident about herself. Had she not been married off at an early age, Laxmi says that she would have chosen to find herself a job before marriage.

1. One bigha is equivalent to 0.25 hectares.

2. In the Indian school system, secondary education starts with Class IX and ends with Class XII.

3. At the time of writing, 2000 Rupees was equivalent to approximately US $44 or £24.

4. This system of second marriage is common in certain parts of Rajasthan and is known as nata. It confers a lower status upon women. Nata started off as a way of arranging second marriages for women in case of separation, desertion or death in their first marriage. However, increasingly, it is carried out for monetary gain.

5. This is in stark contrast to most girls in Laxmi’s village who, at best, only complete Class V.

6. Although other girls in the village have also learnt how to ride a bicycle, Laxmi is the only one who cycles out of the village to attend school.

I thought this was very interesting because despite her circumstances, Laxmi is still considered a fortunate child who is able to continue her education unlike other youngsters her age.

Child coal miner This is Bakyt, an 11-year-old boy who works in a coal mine and, together with his two older brothers, is one of his family's main breadwinners.

 

Young boys fetching water at sunset

Young boys fetching water at sunset from one of the soum centre’s tapstands, Khalkhgol, Dornod Aimag.

Children usually fetch water for households in rural areas like Khalkhgol and some are paid by their neighbours for the service. Some children spend the little money they earn on sweets and games, but some use it to support their families to buy basic necessities like flour and clothes.

by Jenni Marshall/CHIP




Information retrieved from : (http://www.childhoodpoverty.org/),