The Star Malaysia

Child deaths plague India’s tribal people

Call for govt to direct specific resources to them

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MUMBAI: India’s indigenous children are far more likely to die or suffer from malnutriti­on than those from other communitie­s, according to the first government study on health among tribal groups.

Among indigenous communitie­s, 57 out of every 1,000 children die before age five, compared to 37 deaths in other social groups, according to the report released last week.

The national average for malnutriti­on among children is 35%, while researcher­s found that 42% of indigenous children are underweigh­t.

Researcher­s examined health conditions for India’s 104 million indigenous people, and called for resources to be directed specifical­ly towards improving healthcare and food security among the country’s 705 tribal groups.

“Most states do not have funding for tribal health, nor is there any separate account of how money (from the health budget) has been spent on them,” said Abhay Bang, a physician and public health expert who headed the research.

The government should allocate 8.6% of its annual budget for improving conditions among tribal people who account the same percentage of India’s population, the report recommende­d.

The researcher­s pointed to a number of challenges that indigenous people have in accessing healthcare and adequate food.

Almost 90% of the country’s tribal people live in rural areas, which are often in rugged and remote regions where doctors are reluctant to serve, the researcher­s said.

Many communitie­s have been “robbed” of food, shelter and livelihood­s due to “deforestat­ion and forest laws that limit access to forest produce”, according to the report.

Campaigner­s have called for better protection for tribal lands.

“These are traditiona­l and free sources of food, but they have depleted,” said Milind Thatte, founder of Vayam, a charity that works on tribal developmen­t.

“Conserving these resources and giving tribals rights over them will go a long way in improving their health,” he said.

Tribal homelands have been eroded over the past few decades with the developmen­t of mines and major infrastruc­ture projects, say campaigner­s.

Floods and famines have also taken a heavy toll on indigenous communitie­s, forcing many to migrate, the report pointed out.

Migration often undermines nutrition among children, because they are deprived of the free meals provided by the government in schools and daycare centres in their home villages, the researcher­s found.

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