What does it feel like to live in a slum?

For the millions of youth living in slums, daily life can be grim. Kids start their lives on poverty’s front lines, without access to education, infrastructure or sanitation. They are subject to hunger and disease, and are thrust prematurely into adult responsibilities.

How is the life of the people who live in slum areas?

They don’t even have access to a basic need like functional toilets, breeding indignity and infections in their daily lives. As Katherine Boo unfolds the dark belly in “Behind the Beautiful Forevers”, life in an urban slum can be full of squalor and deprivations. Following problems are plaguing Lal Bagh Slum: 1.

What are the problems of living in a slum?

Crime, drug abuse, alcoholism, mental illness, and suicide are part of the lives and landscape of slum areas. A lack of health care and an increase of disease due to a lack of sanitary facilities are also seen in most slums.

How do Indians deal with slums?

Successful strategies:

1. Slum upgrading.
2. Organized urbanization – Planning & Modifying urban areas to accommodate newcomers.
3. Legitimizing slums instead of driving them out of their homes.
4. Improving job opportunities in rural as well as urban areas.
5. Planning rural development along with urban development.

What are children like in the slums?

Children suffer from higher rates of diarrhoeal and respiratory illness, malnutrition and have lower vaccination rates. Mothers residing in slums are more poorly educated and less likely to receive antenatal care and skilled birth assistance.

Why do slums still exist in India?

In India, the causes of urban poverty can be linked to the lack of infrastructure in rural areas, forcing inhabitants of these regions to seek out work in India’s mega-cities. However, as more and more people make this migration, the space left to accommodate them becomes less and less.

What are the benefits of living in slums?

E.g more floor space available in slums as compared to low-cost houses; better access to market and transport facilities as slums are usually found in/ around populous centres; While the younger men and women are at work, the children usually play in the neighbourhood under the watchful eyes of the older men and women.

What are problems of slums in India?

People living in slum areas are also prone to suffer from waterborne diseases such as typhoid and cholera, as well as from more fatal ones like cancer and HIV/AIDS. Also, women and children living in slums are prone to become victims of social evils like prostitution, beggary and child trafficking.

What are the major problems of slum in India?

Slum dwellers in India regularly deals with problems such as lack of clean water, constant migration at slums, no sewage or waste disposal facilities, pollution, and unsanitary living conditions. High levels of pollution, lack of basic needs, and room-crowding are some of the basic characteristics of slum housing.

How common are slums in India?

Every sixth urban Indian lives in slums unfit for human habitation. Slums, in fact, are so common that they are found in 65 per cent of the Indian towns. Yet slum dwellers are the most overlooked section of society.