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Investing in the child

Rasheeda Bhagat

INVESTING in the child is guaranteed to give valuable returns. Parents know this, and invest in the child's health, education and, above all, in instilling a set of values which they think will serve him best in the years ahead.

Governments, too, know this fundamental truth. But most of them, especially in countries where resources are stretched, do precious little about child wealth, even ignoring such fundamentals as nutrition, healthcare and education. Lip service is, no doub t, paid to these issues, but most of the promises remain on paper.

UNICEF has recently released a report titled World's Children. The central theme of the Status Report for 2001 is that the political leaders and development agents of any nation should know that the most critical stage in a child's development is the ear ly years, particularly the first three.

``In the first 36 months of a child's life, brain connections multiply and the motor that will fire the child's thinking and behaviour patterns for the rest of his life is formed. As children learn to speak, sense, walk and reason, the value system with which they will judge good and bad, fair and unfair is also formed. This is the most vulnerable period in a persons's life, and one that demands the most care from society.''

Stressing the importance of taking care of the nutritional and healthcare needs of the young child, the report points out that: ``Long before many adults even realise what is happening, the brain cells of a new infant proliferate, synapses crackle and t he patterns of a lifetime are established. In a short 36 months, children develop their abilities to think and speak, learn and reason and lay the foundation for their values and social behaviour as adults.''

When the discussion is on values and social behaviour, one cannot think of a better person than the former South African President, Mr Nelson Mandela, to talk about his childhood years. UNICEF has done well to invite him to recall these memories for thi s year's Report.

Surrounded by a family ``full of babies, children, aunts and uncles'' he does not recall a single moment when he was alone in the village he grew up in. He says his father taught him the ``sense of justice'' he carries with him. ``By watching him closel y, I learned to stand tall and stand strong for my beliefs.''

To his mother he owns ``stories that charged my imagination, teaching me kindness and generosity as she cooked meals over an open fire and kept me fed and healthy.'' From his days as a herd-boy in the green and beautiful countryside he learnt ``to love t his earth''; from his boyhood friends he learnt ``dignity and the meaning of honour''; and from the tribal elders the ``the importance of democracy and giving everyone a chance to be heard.''

As one reads his poetic essay, one understands where, when and how the seeds of the immense moral strength he was to show in his adult years were sown. Against this glorious picture of childhood -- glorious though there was no great wealth, owned either by his parents or his country, that he could boast about in this sketch of his childhood -- let us look at some of the facts and figures of the early years of the world's children.

The UNICEF report points out that approximately 129 million children were born last year, and almost 11 million children under age five died, mostly from preventable causes. The statistics get more frightening as one reads on. More than 10 million childr en under 15 have lost either their mother or both parents to AIDS. About 20 million children have been displaced by conflict; more than 20 per cent in the primary school age group are out of schools in developing countries; about 177 million children are stunted mainly because of malnutrition in pregnant women, and close to 15 million girls in the age group 15-19 give birth every year.

In the under-five mortality rating, India is 49th in the list of nations, with a mortality rate of 98 per 1,000 live births in 1999. Its infant mortality (under one year) is a little better, at 70 per 1,000 live births.

As the mother's nutrition during pregnancy is directly linked to the infant's health at birth, the report lays emphasis on taking adequate care of pregnant mothers, both in terms of nutrition and regular medical check-ups. The report also reiterates the well-known fact that programmes which empower women lead to improvements in the lives of children in every way.

Saying that women and care-givers matter too, the reports adds: ``Women who are sickly, hungry, oppressed and discriminated against cannot have the ability, willingness and motivation to nurture their children adequately. This is particularly true in the areas of health and education of mothers.''

Specific examples are given of ``early investors'', such as Sweden and Cuba. In Sweden, local governments subsidised childcare for nearly half the children in the country. Ample resources, well-trained staff and well-maintained facilities have ensured th at children who spend their earliest years in Sweden's day-care system ``grow up to be creative, socially confident and independent adolescents.''

Sweden is among the most just countries in the matter of gender rights. Here, too, as in some other European -- particularly Scandinavian -- countries, over the last two decades, the government has become concerned about birth rates falling drastically.

In May 2000, a group of women journalists who had assembled in Kalmar for a workshop, listened astounded at what the government had done to address this issue. A couple of speakers told us that as the task of child-bearing and rearing took away a lot fro m a working woman's career and life, there came a period in the early 1990s when a lot of young Swedish women simply refused to have children.

``Career-women found that in today's jet-set age if they took time off to deliver and raise an infant, they found themselves left far behind in their careers as technology at the workplace was growing at such an amazing speed. There came a time when a Sw edish man who wanted to have a family with children had to go outside Sweden, bring home a woman of another nationality and then raise a family,'' one of the speakers told us.

The result of this phenomenon is that today in Sweden the law allows both the mother and the father to take 18 months off from work to bring up a young child. Now, it depends on the couple to decide who will take leave and who will continue to work after the child is a couple of months old. So, while our female instructor came from Stockholm to Kalmar for three weeks, her boyfriend and father of their young child took time off from work, on full pay, to look after the baby. Actually, he took more time o ff than she did from the allotted leave for the couple. The arrangement worked so well, that they decided to get married after the child completed one year!

But that is in Sweden. In India, even at frontline organisations, men are still battling to get a mere 15 days of paternity leave!

(Feedback can be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in)