Female Feoticide
A Cry Still Unheard: The Menace Of Female Foeticide In India
“I am daughter of India. I am like your daughters who are playing in your premises, who are bringing laurels to the nation like Sunita Williams, Kiran Bedi, Kalpana Chawla, Sania Mirza etc. But there is a difference between me and all of you as I have been killed in the womb of my mother itself.”
Once in our lives, most of us must have heard that a child is a ‘gift’ from God. Though whatever biology may suggest, it is not an uncommon sight in India to see couples praying to be blessed with a child. But almost half of India, no longer considers it a blessing if that child happens to be a girl. The blessing soon becomes a curse and the ‘precious gift’ is done away with as soon as possible before extending another demand to God, that of a ‘male’ child. The doing away often includes either being ‘given’ in marriage to another toddler (or in some cases, to men twice or even thrice their age) or worse, slaying her even before she can take one free breath. Of late, technology seems to have facilitated this diabolical slaughter even before the birth of the child in the form of female foeticide. The term female foeticide means killing the female foetus in the mother's womb. 24th September is celebrated as the International Girl Child Day.
When we celebrate progress, we know that it has been too slow. More than 50 yrs of independence, it is still a women’s face we see when we speak of poverty, of HIV/AIDS, of violent conflicts and social upheaval. Let us assert once again that each women and girl is a unique and at the same time valuable human being, who is entitled to equal opportunities and universally adopted human rights, no matter where she is born or where she lives.
According to the Indian government, 10 million girls have been killed, either before or immediately after birth, by their parents over the past couple of decades despite a law that the government enacted that bans scan tests forecasting
“I am daughter of India. I am like your daughters who are playing in your premises, who are bringing laurels to the nation like Sunita Williams, Kiran Bedi, Kalpana Chawla, Sania Mirza etc. But there is a difference between me and all of you as I have been killed in the womb of my mother itself.”
Once in our lives, most of us must have heard that a child is a ‘gift’ from God. Though whatever biology may suggest, it is not an uncommon sight in India to see couples praying to be blessed with a child. But almost half of India, no longer considers it a blessing if that child happens to be a girl. The blessing soon becomes a curse and the ‘precious gift’ is done away with as soon as possible before extending another demand to God, that of a ‘male’ child. The doing away often includes either being ‘given’ in marriage to another toddler (or in some cases, to men twice or even thrice their age) or worse, slaying her even before she can take one free breath. Of late, technology seems to have facilitated this diabolical slaughter even before the birth of the child in the form of female foeticide. The term female foeticide means killing the female foetus in the mother's womb. 24th September is celebrated as the International Girl Child Day.
When we celebrate progress, we know that it has been too slow. More than 50 yrs of independence, it is still a women’s face we see when we speak of poverty, of HIV/AIDS, of violent conflicts and social upheaval. Let us assert once again that each women and girl is a unique and at the same time valuable human being, who is entitled to equal opportunities and universally adopted human rights, no matter where she is born or where she lives.
According to the Indian government, 10 million girls have been killed, either before or immediately after birth, by their parents over the past couple of decades despite a law that the government enacted that bans scan tests forecasting