Child undernourishment ‘alarming’ in South Asia: report

World map shows regional hunger index. India and Bangladesh are ranked as 'alarming' while Pakistan is ranked as 'serious'. SOURCE: IFPRI.ORG

KARACHI:?With the deadline to achieve Millennium Development Goals just five years away, 2010 Global Hunger Index report prepared by International Food Policy Research Institute IFPRI paints a gloomy picture of South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Some 29 countries in these regions, it says, have levels of hunger that are alarming or extremely alarming.

Regional statistics

Among South Asian countries, India (67) was ranked lower than Pakistan (52) on index and only Bangladesh (68) was ranked below India.

Bangladesh, India & Timor-Leste have highest prevalence of underweight children, at around 40 per cent in Asia.

Global hunger index was calculated for 122 countries on the basis of child mortality rate, prevalence of underweight children and proportion of undernourished people in a country. Data on these parameters were sourced from Food & Agriculture Organization FAO, United Nations Children’s Fund UNICEF & World Health Organization WHO.

Recommendations

The report recommends that interventions, using evidence-based and locally appropriate approaches, are required from conception stage up to age of two to bring down hunger levels. These include improving nutrition of pregnant and lactating women, promoting sound breastfeeding practices, improving hygiene, sanitation, giving essential vitamin supplements where necessary, promoting universal salt iodisation, immunisation.

The report says governments should adopt policies that deal with underlying causes of undernutrition like food insecurity, lack of access to health services, poor caring, feeding practices, which are exacerbated by poverty, gender inequity. But in India, where poverty can be said to be man-made feature, undernutrition is cause and not outcome of inability of people to make themselves food secure or have access to health services.

Few case studies mentioned in report express clearly helplessness of people to combat hunger in absence of resources. It describes hunger as discomfort associated with lack of food.

Undernutrition signifies deficiencies in protein, energy, essential vitamins, minerals and says it is caused by inadequate intake of food – either in quantity or quality. Nations in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa will fall not in overnutrition category but in “hungry” and, to an extent, “undernutrition” categories.

Download the complete report in PDF format here.

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Ten million engaged in child labour in Pakistan

Ten million children are engaged in child labour in Pakistan. PHOTO: SHAHBAZ MALIK

KARACHI:?

Sindh Information Minister Sharmila Farooqui, referring to a recent report, said on Tuesday that 10 million children are currently engaged in child labour in Pakistan, out of which 300,000 are in Sindh.

Addressing a seminar on ‘Activating Media in Combating Child Labour’ at Karachi University, Farooqui said “Child Labor is an international evil. It requires cumulative efforts to wipe it out. The need of the hour is to expand the machinery for enforcing the various laws on child labor.”

According to the report, 220 million children, aged five to 17, are subject to child labour all around the world, excluding those involved in domestic labour.

The minister linked this issue mainly to the lack of proper awareness, poverty and low level of parental education. “There is a plethora of laws but desirable results could not be achieved until there is awareness among parents and children. Child labor is a bane which deprives them of the realisation of their full potential for growth into useful and productive members of the society,” she observed.

She said the media has a very important role to play in ensuring that correct information is disseminated and the government’s considerable efforts to eradicate of the scourge of child labor are duly communicated to the public.

Farooqui also underlined the importance of the role of civil society and NGOs in the elimination of child labor and stressed that the government does not have the infra-structure to reach every section of the society and particularly the millions who work and live in remote areas. “Civil Society and NGOs can act as a bridge between hard-to-reach areas and the government,” she added.

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