India’s child mortality rates have shown a deep decline in the last two decades but the country is yet to bring down the number of deaths of newborn.
The number of children dying between the first month and five years has come down by 70 per cent but the country could achieve slash the percentage of newborn mortality to 52 per cent, said the Global Childhood Report brought out by Save the Children.
Noting that death of newborn children has been high around the world, the report says that two thirds of all deaths under the age of five years in India occur in the first 28 days of birth.
With respect to child marriage, the report says that India has made tremendous progress in curbing child marriages. It says that child marriages in India have come down to 51 per cent. Afghanistan has also seen good progress in curbing child marriages since 2000. Likewise, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh have all made good progress, the report says.
The report says that if child marriages had not been curbed in India, then there could have been about nine million more married girls in the country today. The report says that India could make such remarkable progress in the last two decades because of its various innovative programmes such as providing financial assistance to the family of the girl child who keep their kids in schools, creating awareness of illegality of such marriages, educating the masses against the health issues related to child marriages,
Apart from this, the report says that India has also brought down teen births by 63 per cent in the last two decades.
