Child Road Safety & Gender-Sensitization
"Ensuring child road safety is not just about traffic rules and regulations, it's also about gender sensitization. We must work towards creating a culture of respect and equality on our roads, where every child, regardless of gender, can move freely and safely."
Today road disasters and the harrowing demise of valuable lives in road accidents are very common in India. Road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death for children and adolescents aged 5–19 years. Worldwide nearly 80,000 children and adolescents aged 0–19 years die annually due to road traffic injuries. That is more than 250 preventable road deaths among children and young people each day.
Potential reasons for this high road injury rate are the decreased awareness among school, and van drivers on safe road environments; and dense traffic and/or weak safety infrastructure leaving children at greater risk of harm from road traffic injuries. Furthermore, women and girls are often unable to attend school as they fear that school and private transportation are unsafe for them. This limits their opportunity to access safe and equitable education, a basic human right. A co-benefit of safer school/private transportation will be to provide young women and girls access to all public spaces and in turn education, employment and active participation in society.
Sharen Care Foundation’s aim is that every child survives and thrives in a healthy and safe environment. Reduction of child road traffic injuries, deaths, gender inequality, and environmental impact is critical to achieving this aim. Our Child Road safety actions at the regional and school levels would focus on advocating child road safety trainings and cohorts to raise awareness, knowledge, and behaviour change among school/private bus or van drivers, conductors, and caregivers. Education, awareness and capacity building are the components of our program designed to improve the road safety rules and laws, gender-sensitive attitude, professional behaviour, and understanding of a safer community for the girl child among our key partners.
Child Road injury prevention is not only a transport challenge but also a global development challenge with strong impacts on health, well-being and economic growth. It is critical that to reach the targets, governments and partners will need to commit to sustained actions on road safety. "Ensuring child road safety requires a multi-faceted approach that includes education, awareness-raising, and gender sensitization. By promoting a culture of respect and equality, we can create safer streets and a more inclusive society for all."
