HEALTH, NUTRITION AND CHILD CARE CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD

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Title: HEALTH, NUTRITION AND CHILD CARE
CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD
extracted text: FH-i'Z-

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Critique on Section VII: HEALTH, NUTRITION AND CHILD CARE of India’s Country
Report (February 1997) on CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD

Most of this section of the report is devoted to Statements from the

Constitution, National Health and other policies and programs launched at
various times in the past which affect Children directly or indirectly (mostly
through programs affecting the mother) with a smattering of statistics

which depict progress.
The Priorities for Action in Health (7.13); Priority Areas for Action in

Nutrition (7.37); and Priority Areas for Action in Child care (7.51) are
remedies identified to improve the Health of the Child.
The links between the Policies / programs and the necessity for identifying

such priorities are missing, despite all of these being authentic.
Is there a logic, reasoning and process in our programs, or, are we just

moving towards more and more activities / programs, hoping that

improvement should occur somehow and somewhere? Also, therefore, how
much of each of our efforts ‘trickled down’, or, are most of these merely on

paper?
Some other aspects that need to be addressed in this section are:

a) Health Care - the quality of services; access especially to women and

children; the capabilities of those of who deliver this care and the load
on them, especially when it is seen as Integrated, Comprehensive and

Holistic.
b) Socio-economic factors - the pockets of poverty and their remoteness
from development, seen as differences between states; between districts

within states and within districts, cities, towns and villages.

-

the

impact

of

urbanization,

industrialization,

migration

and

unemployment.

The vastness and varied characteristics of the people of a sub-continent
deserves consideration.

c) Nutrition - not only in terms of specific programs, but also nation-wide
efforts like the Public Distribution system which is a major determinant

for survival and hence the impact it has when deranged for various
reasons. Food security for people is a major determinant of health.
d) Water and Sanitation

- for the programs relevance, cost-benefits,

appropriateness to local needs and cultural reasons for acceptance or

otherwise.

Its impact on disease prevalence like Malaria, Filaria and

other vector

borne

imbalances it causes;

diseases

due

to

ecological and

other wider

and

e) Last, but the most important, that Health is a ‘state’ subject funded

partly by the Central Government (predominantly for National Health

programs) and needs to fund, provide in terms of human, technical and

other resources depending on local “state’ needs.
These need to be addressed / projected, if pragmatic planning and
implementation of programs is to be done for the child.

Dr. Shirdi Prasad Tekur,
Bangalore.

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