Major Campaign towards Tobacco De-Addiction among Children in Sheopur Villages

While the problem of tobacco consumption among adults and even teenagers is commonly prevalent in most areas of MP, it came as a shock to us to find children as young as 5 years old (both girls and boys) addicted to tobacco consumption (they call it pudiya) in villages of Karahal block of Sheopur district. In some villages nearlt half off rhe children above 5 years were taking tobacco. It would be worthwhile to point out here that the Karahal block is among the worst areas in the entire Madhya Pradesh in terms of general deprivation and poverty and also one of the worst areas in the entire country when it comes of child malnourishment and other health and education indicators. As soon as we found out the probem of rampant tobacco consumption among children, our District team started very active sessions with children and their parents to sensitize them about the disastrous effects of this addiction. We found out that in most cases, parents knew about this and were just careless about it. However, our efforts in the last 6 months have started yielding good results. Most of the young children (5 to 10 years bracket) in these 65 villages have left the habit, though we haven’t had full success with the older children (10-16) yet, though a good percentage of them are leaving the habit. Some of the important components of the de-addiction initiative are listed below: 1. Listing of all such children who are addicted to tobacco or alcohol consumption. 2. Daily 10 minutes session in all Seva Kutirs by the teachers on the ill-effects of tobacco addiction. 3. Showing of photographs and display of videos on the harmful effects of tobacco consumption. 4. Regular Counseling of parents to ensure that they also leave the habit and keep a watch on the children and support them to quit the habit. 5. Counselling Counselling and Appeals to shopkeepers to refrain sale of tobacco to children. But it must be said that in these villages those who keep small shops are themselves extremely poor Saharia community people (very often women). 6. Advocacy with local authoroties about stricter vigilance with regard to sale of tobacco products among children in rural areas. We hope to keep up our efforts on a continuous basis in this area.