Gender discrimination in the womb

One of the many mothers and daughters in India discarded by families because the woman gave birth to a girl child. 

7000 girls are killed in their mothers’ wombs every day in India, according to various estimates. 63 million women were never born in India because of this phenomenon of female foeticide.

Killing the girl in the mother’s womb became common in India from the time the technology for sex determination of foetuses arrived. In this country of Himalayan paradoxes, women get odes composed to their gloriousness on the one hand, and they are driven to the worst possible edges of survival on the other. In which country will you find so many goddesses? And that too fire-spitting goddesses like Kali and graceful killers like Durga! There is so much empowerment of women in India’s divine milieu. Why is the story on the ground just the reverse? Why is there so much discrimination against women in the country?

“India is the only large country where more girls die than boys,” says a recent UNICEF report. Slogans like Beti Bachao Beti Padhao had already made enough noise in the Indian political air before the international report arrived. India has around 900 girls for every 1000 boys. UNICEF goes on to say that globally 7% more boys die under the age of 5 while in India 11% more girls die in that age group. In India, girl children are killed. Even before they are born.

Why? The question arises again.

The obvious answer is that boys have all the fun in India except in that 2-wheeler ad. Boys inherit all the family legacy including the family name in India. Only males can perform the funeral rites of parents. And no parent wants to be deprived of the eternal pie awaiting them after all the earthly gallivanting is over. In addition, there is also the quintessentially patriarchal conviction that women are meant to be nothing more than mothers and caretakers at home.

Even the government at the centre which regularly keeps mouthing good-sounding slogans upholding the daughter doesn’t seem to be serious about its intentions. Two of Modi’s most publicised schemes for girl children have achieved little by way of output.

One is Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana (2015). It demands an annual investment of Rs 1.5 lakh from the parents of the girl child for 15 years. Thus the parents will invest Rs 22.5 lakh over a period of 15 years and then the government will return Rs 43.5 lakh at the end of the 15 years. The families that require governmental assistance in this regard can’t ever think of putting aside that sort of amounts for one child. In fact, instead of making the parents think of the girl child as a blessing, this scheme ends up reinforcing the notion that the girl child is a burden for whom the family has to put aside most of their savings.

The second scheme is Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (2015). This was precisely meant to prevent female foeticide. But it turned out to be futile because of the red tape involved. Every application in this scheme has to be processed and approved by three different ministries: the Ministry of Women and Child Development, the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, and the Ministry of Human Resources Development. Another case of maximum government and minimum governance.

Are there no solutions really to this problem of brutal massacre of innocent children even before their birth? South Korea had a similar problem. Apart from enforcing the laws against foeticide, they took meaningful measures to promote women’s welfare. They encouraged and provided opportunities for women to enter the labour force. Women are no longer mere caretakers at home. They are as valuable citizens as their male counterparts. South Korea also employed the media to get support in its efforts to bring women to the forefront instead of using the media for hollow propaganda. Consequently, the entire attitude to women underwent a national metamorphosis.

India needs that sort of a mental metamorphosis. It needs to redeem itself from its obsession with the past and its glories and focus on the present and its concerns. In the meanwhile, you and I as individuals can do our bit of modifying our own attitudes towards the issue (and other issues as well).

PS. This post is part of Blogchatter’s CauseAChatter.