Indian divorce, teenage runaway, premarital pregnancies young single mothers rise – poverty related

Indian divorce, teenage runaway, premarital pregnancies young single mothers rise – poverty related

Because of poverty, both Indian parents, one an odd job worker who turned drunkard and his wife a cleaner, both earning between RM400.00 to RM600.00 have to go to work to keep the family afloat. They live in a squatter settlement in Pantai Dalam, KL when both parents are at work they have no control over their teenage daughters.

The elder girl was told to leave the Brickfields Vivekananda secondary school some two years ago when she was only 15 and became pregnant. The father was drunkard Indian national who drops by on and off to visit his child. Two years later history repeats itself when even her younger sister got pregnant and the father “disappearing”. This is based on a real story.

 This is just the tip of the iceberg of this very serious social problem at the ground level arising out of poverty or is poverty related. This critical Indian problem arises out of UMNO excluding this ethnic minority Malaysian Indians from the National mainstream development of Malaysia.

As a result of this even 5,000 Indian kids did not go to school due to poverty and had been denied birth certificates by UMNO.  Only about 39% of Indian children attended kindergarden, says Suhakam Commissioner Siva Subramaniam (The Star 4/9/9 pg N63).

 RM3,000.00 is Poverty Line says F.T.Minister Raja Nong Chik “If you have 3 children and your household income is below RM3,000.00” (The Star 26/10/2010 at page N14). But this family earns 2,000% lesser than the Poverty Line announced by the Federal Territories Minister.

Since the 1970’s Malaysia has reduced poverty, by nearly half the population (49.6%) the incidents of poverty declined from 5.7% in 2004 to 3.6% in 2007 The incidence of urban poverty decreased from 2.5% in 2004 to 2.0% in 2007 while in rural areas, it declined from 11.9% to 7.1%. The target of the 9MP (2006 TO 2010) is to further reduce the incidence of poverty to 2.8% by 2010 and totally eradicate hardcore poor families.

 In 2006 2,136 hardcore poor households in rural areas were provided home reconstruction assistance, which benefited 10,680 household members. In 2007, housing assistance was provided to 1942 hardcore poor households (The Star 10/1/10 at page N14).

 Low income households are those with a total income of less than or equal to RM2,000.00 per month while poor households are those with a total income less than or equal to RM750.00 per month. Extreme poor describes households that have a total income less than or equal to RM440.00 per month. Once the details of the low income households are entered into the e-kasih system welfare authorities will be able to identify and track the aid distribution across the nation.

The processing time for disbursement of aid for first time applicants will also be reduced from two months to seven days Smart Cards and vouchers will be issued to individuals categorised as poor  and extreme poor (The Star 29/1/10 at page N41).

Solution

Why can’t this and hundreds of other poor and underprivileged Indian families be granted the ten acre land ownership schemes in Felda, Felcra, Risda, Fama, Mardi, Kesedar, Ketengah, etc., by both the Federal UMNO government and the three PKR, DAP and PAS ruled states?

After all there are a total of at least 442,000 almost 99.9% poor and landless Malay muslims are given a ten acre land ownership schemes in Felda (112,000 settlers, Risda (235,000 settlers) and Felcra (95,000 participants) (Berita Harian 25/2/2010 at page 4).

 If only these poor and landless Indians are given the opportunity in these land schemes, then the instances of these divorce, teenage runaway brides, premarital pregnancies, and young single mothers could and would be reduced by some 98%.

 This Indian problem is really very serious. An Indian lady delivers by drainside in Brickfields and even cuts the umbilical cord herself.  (The Star 1/1/09 at page N45).

The only way forward as both UMNO and PKR, DAP and PAS have abandoned even the critical Indian problems but are only interested in their votes is as per the Indian Political Empowerment Strategy.  HYPERLINK http://www.hrp-my.org/books/TheWayForwardEnglishversion.pdf.

 P.Uthayakumar