The missing girl child…

Indian government announced that the country would celebrate January 24th every year as ‘National Girl Child Day’.

Why do we need a special day to spread awareness about girl child?
Why is it that even today one gender finds it tough to be part of mainstream society?

Chutki’s picture courtesy http://www.womeninanimation.in/blog/?page_id=2

Meet Chutki…..go here to see her playing to her heart’s content.
She will steal your heart…..I guarantee you that…..
Just don’t steal her life……and all that is rightfully hers…

Another Chutki could have been someone’s daughter….
But she was killed before she was even born…

This Chutki too, is a product of someone’s imagination, an animation on the computer, nothing more…
For,she too ,battles to come into this world….
She is fighting to be born…
To be someone’s daughter..

A family that will not just love her but make her feel cherished too….Daughters….so much has been written about them…

Here in India, daughters, those of us who were lucky enough to be born, are fighting a battle so that daughters continue to be born in the years to come..

In this land, where women have been blessed since ages with ”सौ पुत्रवती भव ”(May you be blessed with a hundred sons) ……the battle ..nay, the war becomes even tougher..But it is not just about the girls who are being killed even as we speak, still in the womb, not allowed even a glimpse of this world. Not even a breath.

It is also about those girls who are killed immediately after they are born. Female infanticide they call it.
If, however, the girl is lucky enough to escape these two hells, then she has more lying in wait for her.’
Malnutrition, a bias towards her, and preferential treatment for her brothers,’dowry death ‘awaits her after she gets married.
These are the missing women of India.

This is the tale of a society so grotesque, one that worships millions of goddesses everyday and yet murders its daughters without even a qualm.

[Human populations in most countries have a natural gender ratio of about a 100 men to 105 women.In 1986, based on an average expected ratio for third world countries (which was slightly reduced from that for developed countries), the Nobel Laureate, Dr. Amartya Sen, calculated that approximately 37 million women were “missing” from India. These were women who should have been part of the population but could not be accounted for.

The term “missing,” first used by Dr. Sen actually means eliminated.

The elimination however continued, even escalated. Now, 22 years later, it is estimated about 50 Million Women have been systematically purged from India’s population, targeted only because they were female. This is perhaps what makes it one of the worst genocides in human history. And it is silent. And ongoing. The causes of this elimination are primarily female foeticide, female infanticide and dowry murders. because to call them simply deaths absolves the ‘murderers’ of all blame. All the three links above are videos.

Information courtesy- http://50millionmissing.wordpress.com/]

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They will fight for all that is ours…..
They will heal…
They will teach new generations…..
They will be carers,nurturers,doctors,lawyers,soldiers,professors….
They will keep this world safe for those not yet born….
But first, just let them be born…..

In a country, where blessings for sons have been present since ages and where none exist for daughters, it is time that we made some…
So, next time gather up your courage, challenge some old, deeply entrenched dogmas and give a blessing from your heart…

”सौ पुत्रीवती भव ”
”May you be blessed with a hundred daughters”

Believe me, no one will be as grateful as the one for whom you have spoken…

Imagine a world without the girl child….or are we already close to making this a horrendous reality?

[This was published on this blog almost a year back. To read the entire article please go here.]