New Delhi: A report of United Nation claimed that India had highest number of unregistered children under five year of age between 2000 and 2012 and had second-highest number of child marriages. The report suggests that India still needs to improve immunization coverage.
The report ‘Improving Children’s Lives, Transforming the Future – 25 years of child rights in South Asia’ by the United Nations’ children agency UNICEF analyzes the progress made over the last quarter century on key issues that directly affect the lives of children in the region.
India had the largest number of children under the age of five at 71 million whose births were not registered between 2000 and 2012.
The report said that birth registration levels in South Asia have increased since 2000, but progress has been slow.
Along with Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Maldivas, India has been recording “significant improvements” in birth registration but about 100 million children in the region are still not registered at birth.
India has the greatest disparity between the poorest and richest households, with children in the poorest households being three times less likely to be registered than those in the richest.
Muslims have the lowest level of birth registration in India which shows that religion also appears to play a role in it as they have only 39 per cent registration followed by Hindus (40 per cent) while the Jains have the highest (87 per cent).
Notify that Bangladesh is on first position in child marriage where two out of three girls marry before age 18. It had been followed by India, Nepal and Afghanistan.
The report said, “These figures confirm that child marriage is rooted in gender norms and in expectations about the value and roles of girls.”
In India, 43 per cent of women aged 20-24 were first married by the age of 18 between 2005 and 2013. Girls with no education are 5.5 times more likely to marry or enter into union as those with at least 10 years of education.
Bureau Report
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