In a disturbing report, an NGO has found that nearly half of the children in slums from families with history of domestic violence become prone to drug abuse. The Madhya Pradesh women and child development (WCD) department didn’t rule out “such a possibility”.
The study, conducted by Eva Welfare Organisation for over a period of two years in 15 slums here, recorded the pattern in the households of over 10,453 families. Domestic violence was recorded in 8,685 families. In most of the cases, the head of the family too was found involved in drug abuse.
“We found a very close association between domestic violence and the children of the family taking to addictive substances like whitener, petrol, gutka or cannabis. The percentage of children taking up alcohol was relatively less,” said Bharti Mandole, director of the NGO.
“In a slum situated in Musakhedi area, 49% of the children from 464 families with history of domestic violence were into drug abuse,” said Mandole.
The highest percentage of such children was found in Banganga (59%) with other areas like Khajrana (46%) and Palda (48%) following closely.
The NCRB report for 2015 had cited that 17.8% women in Madhya Pradesh face domestic violence compared to 20.5% across the country.
Sanjay Bharadwaj, women empowerment officer, WCD department, said on an average, they receive reports of close to 50 cases of domestic violence from Indore alone. “These cases are taken up by our counseling centres. Though there is no figure available with the department to find out the relationship between domestic violence and children of that household getting into drug abuse, this possibility cannot be ruled out”.
Contacted, ASP (east) Rakesh Singh said, “The relationship between drug abuse in children and domestic violence is a study which needs to be conducted. However, we do get cases where we found child from households with domestic violence taking to drugs.”
