About 20m kids in India orphans: Study

About 20 million children, about 4% of their population in India and higher than people living in Delhi, are orphan. Of them, parents of only 0.3% children have died and rest have been abandoned.

Updated on: Jul 27, 2011, 02:26:19 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

About 20 million children, about 4% of their population in India and higher than people living in Delhi, are orphan. Of them, parents of only 0.3% children have died and rest have been abandoned.

The figure is result of a study done by SOS Children’s Village by analyzing data from National Family Health Survey-3 for the year 2005-06 and the population estimation by the Census of India to find the dark spots for children below the age of 18 in India.

It were the poorer states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal, which had higher number of orphan children as compared to richer northern and southern states of India. As a result, the central zone has highest number of orphan children followed by east zone. The two zones also cover most of the naxal affected regions in India.

“Poverty has been a significant contributor in high orphan children in these states,” said Rakesh Jinsi, secretary general of the NGO SOS Children’s Village. “Social unrest and terror --- militancy and naxalism -- are two another major factors behind the high number of orphans in certain states”.

Orphan children for the study were defined as those abandoned and whose both parents have died. Situation of children with single parent has also been analysed in the study.

India has the highest population of children below the age of 18 --- 41% of the total population. Although over 4% of them are orphan as per the study, around 13% of them live with either of their parent.

But what the study highlight is that a large number of children in India struggle to survive leave alone having access to education and other welfare measures. Some of these children end up being trafficked or pushed into illegal works.

“Many of the children who are trafficked are those whose parents have died or they have been abandoned,” said a senior government official.

The only good news the study presents is that the overall estimation of orphan children in%age terms is expected to fall by 2021 although their number will increase from present 20 million to 24 million. However, there is no comparative data to indicate whether the number of orphan children has increased or decreased.

The SOS Children Village did not present the segregated data on sex-ratio these children to find out whether abandoning of the children is based sex of the child or not.

“In case of poor people abandoning is more because of economic reasons than gender,” said Jinsi.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Catch every big hit, every wicket with Crickit, a one stop destination for Live Scores, Match Stats, Infographics & much more. Explore now!

Stay updated with all top Cities including, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and more across India. Stay informed on the latest happenings in World News along with Delhi Election 2025 and Delhi Election Result 2025 Live, New Delhi Election Result Live, Kalkaji Election Result Live at Hindustan Times.