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| Kudimetha Revati |
More than 600 Adivasi children have been orphaned
with their parents having succumbed to seasonal diseases in the Agency areas in
the Adilabad district of Telangana in the last 18 years.
Outbreak of viral fever, diarrhea, dengue and
malaria fevers besides anemia have caused deaths of many Adivasis.
In many cases, all the family members or majority of
them fallen got afflicted by seasonal diseases in the Agency areas.
Risk from seasonal diseases is aggravated owing to
less immunity in Adivasi people due to lack of nutritious food, polluted
drinking water, poor sanitation and untimely medical treatment.
Most Adivasi orphaned children are in the age group
of 4 years to 15 years. Not just parents, many children bellow 5 years have
also succumbed to seasonal diseases.
Kudimetha Revati,8, lost her parents Shakunthala and
Nagorao to seasonal diseases two years ago.
Her grandfather Kudimetha Bojju now
looks after her, her brother Vinayak and sister Anasurya in Pullala village in
Sirpur( U) mandal. Revati and Vinayak have been suffering from malaria for the
last four days.
One can find many orphans like Revati, Vinayak and
Nagorao in the Adivasis gudems in the district, growing on their own without
any governments support and care.
Revati’s aged grandfather Kudimetha Bojju, looking
after his grandchildren, is worried about their future as he may not live long.
He hopes the state government steps forward to rescue his grandchildren in the
absence of guardians. On few occasions, government
officials and NGOs have intervened and put orphans in hostels meant for them.
Many orphaned Adivasis children were seen roaming in
the gudems without work and some of them have ended up as cattle grazers with
bleak future.
It is estimated that there were 1,500 orphan
children of all categories and nearly 40 percent of them are from Adivasi
communities in the district. State co-convenor of Child Rights Forum and
district committee member of Child Welfare Committee (CWC) Meerza Yakoob Baig
said more than 600 Adivasi children have been orphaned in the Adivasi gudems in
the last 18 years.
He observed that child marriages were also resulted
in deaths of parents at an early age and added that there were only four child
homes for orphaned girls and only two open shelter homes for boys in the
district.
Issue of large number of Adivasi orphans came up for
discussion during Dr Shantha Sinha, then Chairperson, National Commission for Protection
of Child Rights, visited the Adivasi gudems in the Narnoor mandal in the
Adilabad district following the outbreak of seasonal diseases in 2008.
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