Marking the day

We may well acknowledge the first International Day of the Girl Child in India – but let’s not dare assume that we have the right to celebrate it

On the 11^th of October the first International Day of the Girl Child was celebrated across the world. In India, too, we had the usual suspects releasing statements, attending functions, organising events to mark the day. But surely the irony of celebrating a day dedicated to the girl child could not have been lost on any of us. Not when more than 500 women have been raped since the beginning of the year in Haryana alone (and that’s just the cases that have been reported); when the figure for women being married off before they turned 18 stood at an astounding 60 per cent in Bihar; and when female foeticide is believed to have killed at least 10 million girls in the womb all across the country.

Yes, the girl child doesn’t really get much of a break in India. If she escapes being aborted, she arrives into a world that regards her as a burden. She is much less likely to finish her primary education than her brothers. She will probably be married off even before she attains majority. And when she gets pregnant, the likelihood of her dying in childbirth is astonishingly high (more than 65,000 women die giving birth in India every year – or, in other words, every 8-10 minutes a woman dies in childbirth), assuming of course that the pregnancy is not terminated because she is carrying a girl child who needs must die before she can born.

And thus the vicious circle continues, sucking each successive generation of women into its vortex of despair.

I know what you’re thinking. Why paint such a bleak portrait of Indian womanhood? After all, there are plenty of women among us who are valued and cherished by their families, who are brought up as valuable members of society, who are educated, who go on to have worthwhile careers, and are both financially independent and socially secure.

Yes, of course, there are. And I number myself among them. But we are the lucky ones, the minuscule minority who were fortunate enough to be born into the right families and the right social class. If it wasn’t for an accident of birth, we could just as easily be among the 35 per cent of women who are not literate, the 47 per cent of women who are married off as minors, the 212 women in every lakh who die in childbirth because they don’t have access to medical facilities, the 7,00,000 girls aborted every year because they are simply the wrong sex.

When you think of the sheer numbers involved – considering that our population stands at 1 billion and counting – it’s clear just how bad things are for women in India.

It doesn’t really matter that we’ve had a woman President in Pratibha Patil or that the UPA is headed by Sonia Gandhi or that the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha is Sushma Swaraj. It is of no consequence that five states of the Indian Union – Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh – have (or have had) women chief ministers (in Jayalalitha, Mamata Banerjee, Mayawati, Vasundhara Raje and Uma Bharati). Or that the world of finance has seen such power women as Chanda Kochhar and Naina Lal Kidwai running large institutions with aplomb. Or even that we have produced such world-class sportswomen as Mary Kom, Saina Nehwal and Sania Mirza.

All of these are achievements that must be celebrated – as indeed they are – but there is no ignoring the fact that these are exceptions that provide a stark contrast to the trials and tribulations that ordinary Indian women have to suffer every day of their lives. And that they mean nothing to the mother living in a remote village who has to trek for miles every day to get drinking water for her family; to the women who have no access to sanitary napkins let alone comprehensive health care; to the new bride who is harassed to death by the dowry demands of her husband and in-laws; to the young girl who is first raped and then told that she ‘asked’ for it; to the widow who is forced out of her family home and sent off to Vrindavan to await death.

And it is particularly ironic that the UN is marking the first International Day of the Girl Child by drawing attention to the problem of child marriages at a time when the khap panchayats in Haryana have announced that girls should be married off at a young age so that they do not get raped (apparently, a mangalsutra also serves as a rapist-repellent in their strange, convoluted minds), a position that was rapidly adopted by such obscurantist political leaders as Om Prakash Chautala.

So, let’s not celebrate the International Day of the Girl Child just yet. Not until we have ensured that every girl in the womb gets a chance at life. Not until we have made the education of every young girl possible. Not until we have made provision for her health care through menstruation, pregnancy, child-rearing and menopause. Not until we have ensured that she gets paid the same wage for the same job as her male co-worker. And not until we have made sure that she has the liberty to make her own life decisions.

Until then, we can mark the International Day of the Girl Child in our calendars – but let’s not dare to assume that we have any right to celebrate it.

Pink or blue

A new test makes it possible to tell the sex of foetus at seven weeks – but should we be using it?

All of us in India are familiar with those signs that hang in ultrasound clinics and hospitals and warn expectant parents that it is illegal to enquire about the sex of their baby. Sex determination – either through ultrasound or amniocentesis – is illegal in India, where the practice of female foeticide is endemic.

But clearly, many people manage to get around this little legal hurdle, or else the male:female ratio in so many areas of our country would not be so skewed. Some of them go to fly-by-night operators who have no ethical problems with telling them the sex of the baby; or organising an abortion if it’s a baby girl that’s gestating in Mummy’s tummy. Some go to otherwise reputable clinics that use code words to convey the sex: Jai Mata Di if it’s a girl and Jai Shri Ram if it’s a boy, according to one account. And yet others have a ‘family doctor’ or a doctor in the family who can tell them whether it’s ‘pink’ or ‘blue’.

Whatever the methods adopted, the end is invariably the same. The female foetus is aborted. Sometimes this happens in the second or third pregnancy, when the parents are desperate for a boy to ‘complete’ their family. And on occasion, it even happens in the first pregnancy with families who don’t want to be ‘burdened’ with a girl child. And shockingly, this kind of sex selection takes place even among educated, middle-class or even upper-class families who really should know better.

Well, these people are in luck because a new medical test now makes sex determination even easier. A test has been developed which can tell you the sex of the foetus with about 95 per cent accuracy at seven weeks. A blood sample of the expectant mother is taken at the time and tested for the presence of the Y chromosome. If it is present the baby is a boy. If it isn’t then the baby is probably a girl (though it could also mean that there was no fetal DNA in the sample).

In the West, this test is used when there is a danger of a gender-specific disease being passed on the baby. For instance, Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy only affects boys, so a girl foetus would not be at risk and further intrusive testing is not required. But tellingly, some companies refuse to sell this test in India and China for fear that it will be misused in countries where there is a strong cultural preference for a boy.

I have no doubt that were this test readily available in India more people would end up aborting female foetuses rather than end up being ‘stuck’ with a daughter. In the view of people like these, a daughter is nothing more than an endless strain on their resources. You first spend money bringing her up, educating her, making her presentable enough to make a good marriage – at which point you have to liquidate all your savings to give her a grand wedding and a spectacular dowry. It’s a mug’s game, isn’t it?

How much better to have a son, who will repay the investment you make on his education by supporting you in your old age? Not to mention, the nice, big dowry he will score when he finally gets married – and brings a girl into your home to play general drudge, baby-making machine, and additional source of income all rolled into one.

Well, that’s the theory, at least. It’s another matter that these days it is difficult to find a bride in such communities because, by some remarkable twist of fate, everyone just has sons in the family. And that many of these sons have little time or money – or even the inclination – to support aged parents either financially or emotionally.

Which brings me to my question for today: should we allow Indians to use this test to determine the sex of the foetus, given that anyone who asks for such a test would likely abort a girl child at the earliest?

Well, at the risk of sounding heartless and incurring the wrath of many, I have to admit that my answer to that question is, tragically, yes. Before the brickbats start in earnest, perhaps I should explain why I feel this way.

Let’s assume for a moment that you deny such sex-determination tests to expectant parents, thus ensuring that they had daughters whether they liked them or not. What kind of a life do you suppose this little girl would have to look forward to, with parents who would have gladly killed her in the womb?

Do you think she will loved and cherished? I think not. Do you believe that she will be valued for herself? No, she will probably be reminded at every turn that she is not that longed-for son. Will she be raised with every advantage that money can buy? On the contrary, every expense incurred on her account will be grudged.

Will she be resented as an extra drag on the family’s resources? You bet she will. Will she be mistreated and regarded as a burden? Without a doubt. Will her parents make it clear that they wish she’d never been born? All the time.

Now why would you wish that kind of life on anyone? I know I wouldn’t. What I would wish for is a cultural change in our society so that we value all children, regardless of gender, equally. And I wish that change comes about sooner rather than later.