India’s child victims of COVID-19 | Child Rights
Last year, Shyam , 17, became one of the thousands of children in danger of living on the streets of India.
Shyam’s father had abandoned his family in Gudhiyari – a village in Raipur in Chhattisgarh state – eight years earlier. Shyam’s older brother, Gopi, who was 16 at the time, had turned to alcohol to cope, subsequently becoming violent towards their mother, 47-year-old Kishori .
To protect her and help support the family, Shyam dropped out of school when he was 10 and worked odd jobs as a dishwasher. But, unable to bear the stress and violence at home, he ran away in February 2020, in the hope of reaching Mumbai.
COVID: Thousands of Indian children orphaned by pandemic
Despite government efforts to assist children whose parents died as a result of the virus, rights activists say that such children are still vulnerable to trafficking, trauma and abuse.
Over 9,000 children have been orphaned or left without a parent due to the virus
The COVID-19 pandemic, which has devastated families across India, has left thousands of children orphaned or without one parent.
Since the start of the pandemic, more than 1,700 children have lost both parents, while 140 have been abandoned and more than 7,400 have lost one of their parents to the virus, according to the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR).
Covid-19: Eviction fear for millions of renters, and India s orphan emergency
Published
1. Million households fear eviction as ban ends
As rules preventing evictions in England end today, research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation suggests about a million households fear losing their homes. About 400,000 renters have been served with eviction notices or have been told to expect them, the poll of 10,000 people found. Earlier in the pandemic, bailiffs were told not to carry out evictions if anyone living there had Covid symptoms or was self-isolating and notice periods were extended to six months. From today, that reduces to four months. One renter told the BBC his landlord had the power to just flick their finger and get me out , but a landlord said she had struggled to pay her mortgage while her tenant was not paying rent.
The Indian children orphaned by Covid-19
By Vikas Pandey & Andrew Clarance
BBC News, Delhi
image captionChildren have been severely affected by India s second wave of coronavirus
Five-year-old Pratham and his 10-month-old brother Ayush lost their father to Covid in April. Days later, at a different Delhi hospital, they lost their mother.
Their world had changed and they didn t even know it. They couldn t understand why their parents were taking so long to come home. Relatives told Pratham that his mum and dad had gone out for work. But Pratham kept asking, and each day became more difficult than the last.