Female Foeticide: Why can’t we hear our girls cry?

September 23^rd is set aside to celebrate Daughters Day. And it’s celebrated everywhere with enthusiasm, except in India where giving birth to a daughter still bears a stamp of social disgrace.

Traditionally, girls have always been seen as an economic burden—they don’t generate income and a hefty dowry has to be paid to get them married. They provide no social security to their parents in old-age. Parents believe investing in daughters is like watering a neighbour’s plant: the fruits are reaped by the in-laws. So daughters are expected to suffer in silence and hunger while their male siblings are sent to the choicest of schools and fed the best of food the family can afford.

With technological advancement however, women who were discriminated against in their homes and in their workplaces started to become liberated, and proved that they are capable bread-winners. However, technology is a two-edged sword, and society has chosen to use the same technology to further discriminate against women, taking its battle to the womb.

Female Infanticide is a movement, a mindset that’s not limited to any backward, impoverished or uneducated community in our country. It’s the unsung anthem that plays out every few seconds in an Indian household somewhere across the nation. In metros, scores of parents have used the simple ultra sound scan to eliminate the girl fetus. News from Punjab and Haryana reveals a shocking number of fetuses dumped in nullahs.

While we disagree on our political, religious and cultural views, and differ in out socio-economic standing, it’s clear: we are united in our view that women are not wanted. So much that the boy:girl ratio is increasingly getting imbalanced, and our society is beginning to suffer the consequences of interfering with nature’s reproductive cycle.

Brides from Kerala are being sought for the lonely men of Punjab but the unions are far from compatible. Again, the responsibility of adjusting to these cultural differences and altered values falls squarely on the shoulders of the women. Some Haryanvi men are known to share one woman among several brothers, and they manage because the women they prey on are mostly bought from the poorer sections of far-off west Bengal.

While female infanticide may appear to target only women, it actually targets all of society, leading to psychological, physical, mental and emotional imbalances across homes in our country. What is a society which cannot nurture the very person who gives birth to it, feeds and takes care of it? Women are a factor of stability. The home is the first school and you can have no good citizens without good women.

So heed my cry-----------I need to live, so that this world can be a balanced place.