Am not talking of India alone. There is a feudal world operating out there, that deems women as mere machines that produce kids...nay `sons'. God decided to create man and woman. A lot of men decide to create only `men', and initiate a mindset among their women for that too. If women get lucky to be born, they make sure those women are killed, inside the womb, outside the womb, on the roads, in buses, at homes, others' homes...anywhere. They are killed, in the name of `burden', in the name of God, in the name of money, in the name of `caste', class, `honour', `shame', love, hate....just about everything.
My friend Hema, who is an incredibly brave woman herself, chased the following story for a whole year, because villagers would not talk. Hats off to her persistence. The woman in me cries at these brutal murders.
Here is the link to her piece that appeared in Vijaya Karnataka
http://vijaykarnataka.indiatimes.com/articleshow/17364714.cms
Here is the translation:
My friend Hema, who is an incredibly brave woman herself, chased the following story for a whole year, because villagers would not talk. Hats off to her persistence. The woman in me cries at these brutal murders.
Here is the link to her piece that appeared in Vijaya Karnataka
http://vijaykarnataka.indiatimes.com/articleshow/17364714.cms
Here is the translation:
Born to die...lost in the woods
H. Hemalatha“Akka, this time too it is a girl…whatever we did, the child did not die…we left it near the ant hill…’’ said a woman casually. For a moment, the women who were pulling out weeds in the turmeric field froze.A barely audible sigh emanated from them. When they heard a loud voice demanding to know why no work was going on, their working hands resumed their activity again…pulling out weeds.This is not a new in Sundaralli, Martalli, Jaageri, Koodluru, Kavalli, P.J. Palya, Raamapura and many other villages in Kollegal taluk of Chamarajanagar district. Killing of baby girls. It is an open secret. In many villages of Kollegal taluk, female infanticide has been going on incessantly for decades. If you go in search of such people or incidents, no one will give you a straight answer.Try rephrasing the `killing’ question, and Jeevika (name changed) says, ” What can one do? There are no girl children in our village….they die soon after birth….they are fine one day and gone the next….if one girl child is born, they rejoice. The second girl child is also somehow tolerated; if the third is also a girl, they do not let it live, they kill the child. They kill it with a hammer or something else. They take it to the fields and bury it there.”Before Jeevika says anything else, the others in the group try to hush her up. They feel it is none of their business. They do not want to be caught on the wrong foot, if things went awry.The first born of Sonam who lives in Martahalli is a girl. At the time of birth of her second child, she waited with bated breath to know the child’s sex. The minute she knew it was a girl, she burst into tears. When asked why she cried, she said, ``If all the children are girls, where will we get the money to take care of them? Feeding them is itself a big task, can one educate them? We need money for their marriage too. If we think of the difficulties that lie ahead, I feel this is far better,” wiping her tears, implying the baby will get killed.‘Which mother would want her child to die? If we say we want a girl child, they will throw us out. If I do not listen to my mother-in-law and husband, can I live? Many times, we do not know what they do or how they do it,” she wailed, helpless.Both the men and women work. Half the household earnings get thrown into the drinking habit of men. Not only do they spend their money, they snatch away money from wives too. Physical abuse is common. Running a household is extremely difficult.When these women are asked if they would want to keep the child, they look vacantly into space; silence is their answer. When the same issue is raked up, the woman rues, ``Will we be able to live if we oppose family? All are our people, there are not outsiders. How can we speak against them? It is not possible.”Walking around these villages, we mostly see groups of boys moving around. There are no girls to be seen.The village women say, “We do not get brides for our boys. We go to Shira, Tumkur to find brides. Our children say that if we keep killing all the girl children, it is obviously going to pose problems when boys want to get married”.“That there are no girls available for marriage is proof enough for the existence of female infanticide and foeticide since decades. If a girl child is born, the child is taken home, much against our wishes, within two hours of being born. Often, the new mother comes alone for the check-up. This should be questioned. The new mother says that the child died all of a sudden. This is infanticide, but it cannot be proved, we are helpless,” says the doctor at the Primary Health Centre.Through the National Rural Health Mission scheme, many deliveries are conducted at the primary health centre. Such killings happen in spite of Asha workers and NARs regularly visiting and keeping an eye on pregnancies.“On village visits, we talk to people. We explain to them about the facilities provided for the girl child. We threaten them saying that infanticide is punishable by law. The killings have come down in number compared to few years before. But they have not stopped completely. We should cleverly convert them to our way of thinking. Else, they will not even let us anywhere near the villages,” says a health worker from Palya.Literacy levels have significantly increased in the State, to to 75.60%. The 33% reservation women has ensured that in villages and village Gram Panchayats, there are women members. But, there are not many, even among those women whose infants meet their end, who raise their voice against this practice of murdering girls.While going around these villages, you see a population that does not view infanticide as a crime, let alone an offence.
How do they do it?Generally, an elderly woman kills the girl child. The infant is fed with some powdered seeds, by mixing paddy grains in oil, throttling the child with a rope, wrapping it in damp cloth and exposing it to cold weather, and so on.Often times, the half-dead children are left near ant hills, buried in the fields and thus silently finished off. They take care to see that people outside the house are not aware of the child’s delivery. They go to great lengths to make everything look normal. Many families where such killings have taken place, have gone off to Tamilnadu. Once time has passed enough and faded public memory, they return to their villages.Where have all the girls gone?When you calculate the gender ratio of children below six years of age in Chamarajanagar district, there has been a significant decrease. For 48,854 boys, there are only 46,005 girls. In the 2001 census, for every 1000 boys, there were 964 girls. National level statistics show that a decade back, if there 927 girls for every 1000 boys, today, there are 914 girl children.From 1991, though there has been an increase in the gender ratio, as far as the 0-6 age group is concerned, census reports sa that since 1961, the number of girl children has steadily decreased.What does the law say?Femal infanticide was banned in the 19th century. In 1805, among the Jadeja clan of the Saurashtra Rajputs, it was seen that there was an increase in female infanticide. In 1808, there were no girl children in a village in Uttar Pradesh. The chief officer of Baroda, Alexander Walker called a meeting of the village elders, and made them sign a letter admitting their guilt in continuing the practice of female infanticide, and that they would not do it henceforth. In 1870, a law prohibiting female infanticide was passed by the British Government. In 1898, this was considered a crime.The Indian Penal Code considers infanticide, homicide. All the laws that are applicable to homicide apply to these cases too. Section 318 says keeping the birth of a child secret and secretly burying the body is a punishable offence.Table: There has been a significant decrease in the female:male ratio in seven districts. Chamarajanagar leads the statistics on this front. (based on Census reports)
Female infanticide takes place in other parts of the world too. In Arab countries and China, this is more in number. During 200 BC, the practice of female infanticide was so rampant that among the 6,000 families that lived in Delphi, less than 1 percent of people had two girl children, according to the political sociologist, R.J. Rumel, who has mentioned this in his book “Death by Government”.Come to think of it, perhaps Goddess Seeta escaped infanticide as a child – Janaka finding her buried in a pot in the ground.Attempts at saving girl children do get reflected in an incident at Ramapura of Kollegal district about 10 months ago. When a young couple who had come to the Primary Health Centre of Ramapura had their fourth girl child, they urgently packed up to return home from the hospital.The doctor, who was aware that female infanticide took place in these parts, got alert and advised the young couple against it. Simultaneously, the doctor alerted the Child Welfare Committee of the District. Members of the Committee rushed to the sport and counselled the couple.“Even after talking to them for more than an hour, they insisted that they be sent home. Finally, the mother said that they did not want the child. We convinced them that if they did not need the child, they should not harm it, but hand it over to us. We got the child and have left it in the child care centre. We have the satisfaction of saving the life of a girl child,” says Lochana, the President of the Chamarajanagar Child Welfare Committee.
