Encompassing multidimensionality (Category A)

This section covers a description of the category “Encompassing multidimensionality”, which stands for an account of child poverty as conceived by the participants. The starting point for the discussion of each focus group was the question “Whom do you consider to be poor children?” Child poverty was conceived to be multidimensional as perceived, experienced and understood by the participants. From line-by-line coding of extracted transcripts of FGDs, certain open codes started to reappear. These were non-fulfilment of basic needs, parental low earnings, high ambi- tion, deprived of education and so on (see Figure 7). At this stage, based on the relationships around certain groups of open codes, axial codes commenced to emerge.

Thereafter, the concept of child poverty was surfaced from the three major emerging axial codes: 1) focusing suffering of deprivation; 2) emphasizing parental incapability; and 3) express- ing aspirations and the likelihood of them being realized (see Figure 5, Figure 6 and

Figure 7).The

suffering of “deprivation” of basic necessities was the main focus in the children groups. The women’s group emphasized on “parental incapability” related to low income or lack of resources for child development; and, all four groups discussed their “aspirations and the likelihood of them being realized”.

focusing suffering of deprivation: In their attempt to visualize the characteristics of

poor children, all participants paid attention to the limited access to food, shelter and other very basic human needs such as clothing, health care and education. As understood from their discus- sions, such deprivations were severe on the account of children’s suffering. The principal concern in this conversation was the anguish of living in such absolute or extreme level of poverty. For instance, one said: “When it rains the water leaks into our house”. Another said: “We wear torn cloths. There is water on the footpath when it rains, then there is no place to lie down on”. These are some examples of the frequently expressed concerns about suffering of severe deprivation for the children who grow up in absolute poverty.

Unlike children who do not grow up in poverty, children living in absolute poverty, like the participants of this study, suffer in many aspects of lives. A clear agreement was not made on

who are absolute poor. Nevertheless, according to the participants’ description, child poverty in absolute term means: not having a satisfactory quantity of foodstuff to eat, having parental less capabilities to provide for their children’s basic requirements such as paying for accommodations, education, shelter, clothing, and health care. The following excerpt is an illustration of how a child (who lives in absolute poverty) defines their poverty status:

I am poor because I don’t have money. We don’t have money. ‘Poor’ people are people like us. We live on the footpath, have nothing to eat, and lack everything…we cannot pay rent on time; the house-owners yell at us.

Child poverty, as sketched by the aforementioned child, is “lack of everything”. This quote con- veys a definition of child poverty as deprivation that entails the household’s inability to pay for food and rent, as well as an absence of everything needed to fulfil basic human needs. This kind of deprivation offers nothing but huge physical and emotional suffering that includes frustra- tion, sorrow, humiliation and powerlessness. Thus, children’s accounts repeatedly expressed their limited access, or no access at all, to basic needs. However, what is striking here is that none of the participants claimed getting access to basic needs as their right to “be adequately nourished; be adequately sheltered; have basic education; be able to appear in public without shame” as de- clared by the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (as cited in Minujin et al., 2006). The participants in particular were not even aware of children’s rights. The findings that indicate deprivation from a number of directions in poverty are consistent with the discussion among the poor women. One woman said: “We have problems with providing food and shelter, clothing, educating the children”.

Turning to healthcare, the participants did not think that spending on healthcare for the poor children is compensated for by the public healthcare services. Responding to a discussion on healthcare, one woman asserted: “Treatment is something I have to pay for myself”. In this circumstance, reliance on market based healthcare services can cause health deprivation in the cases of poor families that already struggle to provide subsistence for their children. Thus, health deprivation (Gordon et al., 2003) increases the risk of causing the emergence of long-term pov- erty (Harper, 2004). As outlined above, child poverty is not only a matter of living in low-income

households. Rather, children can suffer severe deprivation in many aspects.

emphasizing parental incapability: The discussions in the children’s groups primarily

concentrated on describing deprivation experienced by the poor children in relation to parental incapability to meet their basic human requirements. Deprivation was found to be associated with monetary aspects of parental inability to provide for their children, including water and electricity. Also other factors such as parental access to or command over resources, education, earnings etc. act as “capability inputs” that a play vital role in producing wellbeing of children. For instance, the incapability of parents and other care givers were carried found to be resulted from their poor command over resources. The inadequacy in command over resources is produced from a range of channels, for instance, market (earnings and property income) and public provision or other non-market channels. Ill health and low education were noted from the discussion as impaired personal conversion factors to contribute to produce parental incapability. The participants were fully aware of this.

This is clearly expressed in FGDs that parental incapability forces children to go through extreme hardship. For instance, when one child participant attempted to define poor children as: “The poor (children) are those that (whose parents) do not have money, wear torn cloths, have no supply water, and electricity”. Another child said: “Those that can’t eat twice a day. (Their) parents have a difficult time running the household on their money”. Not surprisingly, the state- ments outlined above viewed very usual characteristics to identify poor children. These include: not having an adequate amount of food the children are required to eat, a safe shelter to live in, appropriate clothing they need to cover themselves with, clean water for drinking and sanitation they demand, and access to electricity they necessitate. These statements indicated that child pov- erty and parental incapability are closely related. Surely, this is an issue, particularly for a child who resides in a society where public provision of welfare or other non-market sources does not work in the shortfall of market income. In such a case, due to inadequate market income, parents or care givers pass very tough time to manage sustainable livelihood to afford for their children.

Women’s views on parental incapability were also associated with income. All the par- ticipants in the women’s group focused on parental incapability. This is indicated to the lack of

income or resources that deprives their children. These views show that one’s ability to provide for one’s children is also related to income and wealth. One woman participant defined child poverty as having low parental income: “Those (parents) who have a low income are called poor”. Although many of these parents do work, their earnings are very low. As in most cases, the lower parental capability (in terms of income and resources) the lesser is their command over commodi- ties that the children require in particular. In fact, this is particularly true for those who are in short access to financial or in-kind support from any other sources.

Besides the children participants, women participants stressed parents’ frustration at be- ing unable to fulfil the basic need of their children, particularly to provide food, healthcare and to educate their children on account of poverty. In this context, while poor parents struggle to feed their children and pay rent for shelter, for obvious reasons, the women’s group expressed the parental priority for providing food rather than sending children to school. This is evident in the following statement: “I still cannot educate my younger daughter… I have to pay rent and pay for food so I cannot afford it”. In such a situation, acute suffering of deprivation in many aspects of life is one of the major concerns, in respect to child poverty, particularly in a society having poor econoomy. Although the participants from all poor groups viewed child poverty primarily as parental incapability resulting from a low income, they also viewed child poverty as an outcome of the low level of parental education.

expressing aspirations and the likelihood of them being realized: Child poverty was

found to be the barrier between children’s hopes or aspirations for the future on one hand, and the likelihood that they would be realized on the other. All the participants, particularly in the chil- dren’s groups, considered their social and economic potential, and agreed that education was the most important channel to realize their dreams.

Despite parental incapability, data from the women’s group showed their strong desire to provide educational opportunities for their children, and even to provide a high quality education. For example, one woman said: “My baby is growing up. If we earned a little more we could edu- cate him... You understand the expense of raising children. They should be sent to good schools and given everything of high quality”. In the conversation another woman articulated children’s

wishes, saying: “Children have a wish to grow up, educate themselves and make it big for them- selves. ‘Mom, I will make all your sorrows go away when I have completed my education’, my daughter says to me”. Children’s ambition is also reflected in most of their high expectations regarding education and their stated dreams of becoming a doctor, an engineer, a teacher or even a pilot. Becoming a doctor was the most common ambition in the children’s groups, as one child said: “I want to be a doctor when I grow up”. Another girl expressed her aspiration to be a teacher in her adulthood, saying: “When I grow up I want to be a teacher”. Another girl said: “I want to be a pilot”.

“If I could be the owner of Japan City Garden then I would be rich”, said one child par- ticipant, and another child, in a similar vein, said: “And saving money in the bank. And then find big connections and then own Japan City Garden. I will go straight from the bottom floor to the 16th _{floor”. Japan City Garden is a huge and very attractive housing complex in the fast growing} mega city of Dhaka, comprising around 15/16 storied apartment buildings in Dhaka. The par- ticipants in this study live close to this housing complex in different slums. By being rich, they meant to move out of poverty, which seems to be only a dream to them. However, their dreams know no boundaries. One child said: “I want to buy the world!” (laughs). Unfortunately, the gap between the desire, hope, aspiration or ambition and the lack of realistic possibilities of achieving these goals are extreme. As a result, the educational potential of children remains unexplored and unrealized.

From the participants’ perspectives, it is clear that child poverty is multidimensional and affects children in a number of ways. Child poverty, from the participants’ point of view, can be defined as a state of multidimensional deprivation regarding the children’s basic human needs, such as proper food, safe and secure shelter, clothing, and a minimum of healthcare and educa- tion. Most importantly, the definition of child poverty includes deprivation from a number of dimensions. As a result, children’s dreams cannot be realized, in most cases, such as one of the participants of this study who passes their lives in child poverty. The data analysis also depicts an understanding of poverty as a condition in which children’s potential and dreams cannot be realized, due to a mismatch between what parents want for the children, what children want for

themselves and what the parents are able to offer.

In document About Child Poverty – A Bangladesh's Perspective (Page 105-110)