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Fight for a baby boy, Craze for male child
by Sanjay Jha | April 20, 2008 at 06:39 am | 303 views | 4 comments | 15 recommendations
Indians are known for their preference for a male child and this has led to a skewed sex ratio in many parts of the country. In some parts of India, in fact, men are buying wives from far flung areas where girls don't even speak their language. This is a recent case reported in southern India in which two families are fighting for a baby boy.
The girl child, as revealed by the tussle between two mothers who got their babies mixed up in a maternity hospital and then fought for the baby boy, is still often unwanted. The scheme introduced by Tamil Nadu government in 1992 to allow parents to deposit unwanted babies in cradles put up outside government offices has so far received over 2,000 babies, most of them girls.The first batch of these cradle babies have now completed their Class X exams and are raring to go. "The woman who gave birth to me abandoned me," says 15-year-old Madhushree (name changed). Pointing to her foster mother at the SOS Village, an NGO, in Tambaram, she adds, "but my mother brought me up."
April 20, 2008 at 06:39 am by Sanjay Jha, 303 views, 4 comments
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (4)
at 07:12 on April 20th, 2008
I had no idea about the 1992 scheme for abandoning babies- what a terrible idea. How is flooding orphanages a sound civic policy?
at 14:05 on April 20th, 2008
Let us not forget that the underlying cause of this most surprising story is the Dowry system. According to such abominable but current social rules, women transfer their parents´ wealth to the bridegroom´s family. If she has little to offer, marriage would not be arranged at all. Love marriages among Hindus are still very few in India. The 1992 scheme was designed to counter the increasing wave of baby girls killed at birth by their parents. In the mid 90´s, it surprised me to see adoption campaigns worded in gender terms. The following messages were placed on public buses: "Adopt a Child: give her a chance".
at 06:09 on April 21st, 2008
Sanjay Jha, I like this story. It's good stuff.
at 07:01 on April 21st, 2008
Sanjay Jha, I like this story. It's good stuff. Certainly a tragedy, especially since without women, Boys wouldn't be born in the first place. As for arranged marriages, with Polyagamist cults here, it is just not an Eastern thing, we have them here, though at a smaller percentage, as for Dowry's though not typical in Canada, a job, home and car seem to be a prequisite just to get a date, let alone marriage in North America. Love seems to be out of the equation in a lot of relationships, or at least on the backburner, the Adage of "Living on Love alone" never had to pay the rent or groceries with it, unless they were Ladies and Men of non taxable incomes in the Worlds Oldest Profession.