Children - Terre des Hommes

20
area affected by the Vedanta project in Orissa are from
Scheduled Tribes.
Coal is considered one of the most polluting mining
activities and has serious implications on climate change
concerns. Yet India’s agenda of coal expansion in the coming
will be met from coal-based power — is bound to have
serious long term impacts on a large population of children,
especially Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe children,
who live in the coal mining region of the central Indian
belt, which consist of some of the most backward states like
Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West
Bengal, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh and parts of the North
East like Meghalaya.
Specific situation of tribal
children
Even under usual circumstances, statistics show that tribal
children in India still struggle to access basic services such
as education and healthcare. According to the Ministry for
Tribe children remain out of school. 28 Continued exclusion
and discrimination within the education system have
resulted in dropout rates remaining the highest amongst
Scheduled Tribe children as compared to all other social
groups.
The majority of health indicators show far poorer results for
children from Scheduled Tribe populations as compared to
the national average. The most recent National Family Health
infant and child
mortality rates remain very high amongst tribals. Tribal
children are also still less likely to receive immunisation. 30
The Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Jean Zielger,
in his report based on his mission to India in August 2005,
wrote that most victims of starvation are women and
children of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes,
with their deaths mainly due to discrimination in the food
based schemes. According to his report, this was because of
discrimination in access to food and productive resources,
evictions from lands, and a lack of implementation of food
based schemes despite laws prohibiting discrimination
and “untouchability.” 31 Given that tribal children still face
enormous challenges in terms of access to food, education
and healthcare, displacement by mining projects increases
their vulnerabilities further and renders their survival and
development even more precarious. Displacement also has a
serious psychological impact on children, who need a degree
of security and stability in their upbringing.
One of the fundamental concerns with regard to
displacement of adivasi communities for mining projects
is the loss of constitutional protection for their children.
The rehabilitation policy and the new tribal policy have
been diluted from the earlier position of land-for-land as
compensation, to a mere monetary compensation if there was
no possibility of providing land. Further, the rehabilitation
policy also specifies that no rehabilitation will be undertaken
in the Scheduled Areas where less than 250 families are
proposed to be affected. This, at one stroke, deprives the next
generation of adivasi children of the land transfer regulations
under the Fifth Schedule, whose families are alienated from
their lands for mining projects. As these families either
The situation of tribal children in the mining areas of
Jodhpur, Rajasthan, is a case in point. The residents
of Bhat Basti had previously been nomadic, roaming
around the countryside with their livestock. However,
lack of available land for animal grazing, as a result of
urbanisation and industrialisation, forced them to settle
in one location almost 20 years ago, where all the adults
and many of the children now work as daily wage labourers
in the local stone quarries. None of the 200-odd children
in the village attended school and all were illiterate. They
lived in kachha housing, made of stones and covered
with black tarpaulin sheets. There was no running water,
electricity or sanitation available in the village. The
children had received no vaccinations apart from polio and
all are malnourished. The research team met one severely
malnourished boy who was claimed to be two years old but
looked like a baby of no more than nine months.
27. Tata AIG Risk Management Services Ltd, Rapid environmental impact assessment report for bauxite mine proposed by Sterlite Industries Ltd near Lanjigarh,
Orissa, August 2002, p. 7 of the executive summary.
28. For a full overview on Scheduled Tribe children and education, see Status of Children in India: 2008, published by HAQ: Centre for Child Rights.
29. Ministry of Human Resource Development, Chapter on Elementary Education (SSA and Girls Education) for the XI th Plan Working Group Report, 2007, pp. 14.
30. For a full overview on Scheduled Tribe children and health, see Status of Children in India: 2008, published by HAQ: Centre for Child Rights.
Paradox of Hunger amidst Plenty.
31. Report of the Special Rapporteur on Right to Food, Jean Ziegler, on his Mission to India (August 20-September 2, 2005.
Combat Law Volume 5 Issue 3. June-July 2006.