Issues related to women and children are often relegated to the back-burner. Even women legislators have failed to draw the attention of the House to such pernicious issues which affect the economy of the state in the long run because half of the population are non-productive due to health and other reasons. On Tuesday last, the BJP MLA from Pynthorumkhrah Constituency pointed at the need to expand the ambit of reservation to the depressed sections of society which includes the marginalised among tribals. How this intervention can translate to action is a tall order but the point made by the MLA has to be explored further because this is a much neglected issue since the poor are also voiceless.
As former Health Minister, AL Hek would be informed that Meghalaya is a state with the highest number of single-mother households on account of abandonment and divorce and that children are cared for by their mothers. These women are largely domestic workers or hawkers. They hardly earn enough for two square meals much less to send their kids to school. But they are invisible in the larger schemes of things including in the state budget. Hek should call for a study to determine exactly how many single-mother headed households there are in the entire state so that adequate resources are allocated for them and their families. What also batters women in Meghalaya is early pregnancy and non-adoption of family planning methods. The latest NFHS -5 found that in Meghalaya only 27% women adopt family planning methods while states like West Bengal and Himachal Pradesh are as high as 74%. Even a Christian state like Nagaland has done better with 57% women using some family planning method.
The Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) which is the number of live births per 1000 births shows that of every 1000 babies born 32 die at infancy. Maternal mortality or women dying at childbirth is equally high and this is due to the mother’s poor health, mainly anaemia. 56% of women in the age group of 19-45 years are anaemic in Meghalaya. The staggering figure of July 2020 where 61 pregnant women and 877 new-borns died in Meghalaya between April to July that year is a stigma. The figures of children who are stunted in Meghalaya is 48.2 rural and 35.1 urban. Stunting has huge costs for the child and the economy. Stunted children have weakened immune systems, are more susceptible to diseases like diabetes and cancer, and are likely to die earlier than non-stunted individuals. Brain development is affected too, resulting in lower IQs and ultimately reduced incomes in adult life. When will these poor socio-economic indicators begin to be taken seriously?
