India's lost daughters

[suchandra]

Last night there was a quite shocking documentary on TV about Indian women who "want to spare their daughters from their own fate in live".

Additionally many families cant pay for a dowry which is almost a law, especially, when they have more than one daughter. Out of despair they decide for terrible abortion - with the result that by now 10 million girls are missing and 10 million men cant have a family living. In some parts of India, one in every five girls is being eliminated at the fetal and of course how could it be otherwise, USA supplies all the "advanced" technologies like ultrasonic etc. in every small town, "the business to be worth $100 million to $200 million a year in India". (Wallstreet Journal)

Another important pressure for this negative development is of course the fact that those who own and control the rupee currency also control the economic well being of India and this is not the Indian government but a handful globalization tycoons in NY who decide about the value of the rupee and the quality of live of India's middle class and lower middle class. Playing football with India's currency so to speak. Since India's government is nothing but a paid shadow cabinet of NY's super rich elite till today no doctors who perform abortions are being punished although in India abortion is illegal. In northern India we find regions with villages where only men live - and the Indian government seems to have an answer for this too: Bollywood. This world's biggest film industry supported by Hollywood is providing for these millions of unwanted single men pornographic content via satelite.

 

Genocide of India's daughters

 

Last updated at 08:49am on 14th October 2006

 

What will become of this nation of ever fewer women?

 

Girl Shortage Causes Wife Buying In India

 

Ten million female foetuses have been illegally aborted in India by mothers desperate to bear a son. What will become of this nation of ever fewer women? ANNE SEBBA investigates:

 

 

May you be the mother of a hundred sons - this is the Sanskrit blessing given to a Hindu woman in India on her wedding day. And the minute she falls pregnant, there is the traditional chanting of mantras by the other women of the family, calling for the foetus, if female, to be transformed into a male.

Increasingly, such age-old beliefs are becoming a curse in India, as, in this deeply patriarchal society, women have become obsessed with giving birth only to sons.

‘Asking me why I need a son, instead of a daughter, is like asking me why I have two eyes and not one,’ says one woman in the northern district of Haryana, who has just had an abortion after discovering that the baby she was carrying was female.

This woman is by no means alone in taking such shocking and drastic measures to avoid giving birth to a girl. In fact, such is the widespread determination to produce only sons that, since ultrasound scans became widely available in the Eighties, the number of abortions carried out on female foetuses in India has risen at a terrifying pace.

Even by the most conservative estimates, sex-selective abortion in India now accounts for the termination of some ten million female foetuses over the past 20 years. That means that each year a staggering half a million girls have been prevented from being born.

‘This is the world’s biggest genocide ever,’ says Chetan Sharma, founder of the Delhi-based organisation Datamation, which campaigns against female foeticide. According to India’s 2001 census, the number of nought to six-year-old girls per 1,000 boys was 927, a dramatic dip from 962 in 1981.

‘The future is frightening. Over the next five years we could see more than a million foetuses eliminated every year,’ says Dr Sabu George, who has charted the problem. ‘At this pace we’ll soon have no girls born in the country. We don’t know where it will stop.’

The female shortfall is not a new problem in India. Even during the days of the Raj, and the first census in 1881, the British made efforts to eradicate female infanticide. But the problem of female foeticide is a new phenomenon fuelled by advances in technology and the widespread liberal attitudes to abortion.

In 1971 India was one of the first countries to legalise abortion, partly intended as a means of population control.

‘Today, anyone can walk into a government hospital and ask for an immediate abortion up to the 20th week of pregnancy, free, merely by saying there has been a failure of contraception,’ explains Kalpana Sharma, whose columns in The Hindu newspaper regularly rail against the dangers of undervaluing women.

Women cannot admit that they knew the sex of their baby in advance of having an abortion because that is illegal in India.

According to a law passed by the Indian government in 1994, hospitals, clinics and laboratories are not allowed to use prenatal diagnostic techniques — including ultrasound scans like those pregnant women in the UK routinely undergo at 12 and 20 weeks — for the purpose of determining the sex of the foetus.

However, this law has been widely ignored — because local officials are reluctant to fight the will of the people.

Women know that if they produce only daughters, they will be pitied by everyone around them — or, worse, abused. In many cases, it is even considered a betrayal of the family.

‘I want a son as we have a big business,’ says another woman who has undergone nine abortions of female foetuses. ‘I want what my husband has built from scratch to go to his own blood.’ But it is not just that in Indian families it is the son who will carry on the family name or business and take care of elderly parents.

Daughters are an enormous financial burden because when they marry, a dowry must be found. Although it is illegal both to give and receive a dowry, the practice continues and the demands made by the groom’s family are increasingly nothing short of extortion, according to Kalpana Sharma. These days, they often include jewellery, clothes, furniture, white goods, cars and even a new home.

Lavish weddings in exotic locations and with mammoth feasts are also expected, and the groom’s family often makes last-minute demands. ‘Raising a female child is like watering your neighbour’s plant,’ says one woman in Gujarat.

For the boy’s family, it is gain, gain, gain. But for the girl’s parents, financing the dowry and wedding often involves selling off land and spiralling into debt that becomes impossible to pay off.

 

Lifestyle choice

 

Female foeticide isn’t common only among poor families. Aborting a female foetus is increasingly becoming a lifestyle choice among wealthy women.

The states with the lowest ratios of girls to boys — 820 females to every 1,000 males — are also the most prosperous, like Punjab, Gujarat and Haryana. It is not simply that affluent women believe they will have a better standard of living if they have only sons.

It means, too, that there is more money to spend on sport, leisure and consumer goods, as well as more time to pursue a career. There is also the issue of land inheritance. Daughters are now legally entitled to an equal share of land when their parents die and many families do not want to see their legacy divided up.

The division of land has become a major factor in recent years because although sex-selective abortions are still largely an urban phenomenon, the easy availability of mobile scanning machines means doctors are now doing brisk business in rural areas.

Getting a licence for the equipment is easy and many so-called ‘doctors’ offer women the service without being qualified or registered.

There are 25,770 officially registered pre-natal units in India, but one doctor estimates there are as many as 70,000 ultrasound machines operating in the country. Nobody reports the unqualified technicians because it is not in their interest to do so.

Even the qualified doctors in registered clinics have ways of circumventing the law against using ultrasound tests to determine the sex of the foetus. If the ultrasound test shows a male foetus in the womb the doctor simply tells the nurse: ‘I think this calls for sweets,’ a well-known code to mean ‘Good news, it’s a boy’. No paperwork is filled in, so there is no evidence of illegal practices.

Anyone found guilty of organising an illegal abortion theoretically faces a prison sentence of between three and five years and a fine of 10,000 rupees (£118). But only two men have been convicted since the law was introduced 12 years ago.

So why do such highly-trained doctors show such a disregard for the ethics of sex selection? Some doctors insist they are performing a valuable service by preventing divorces.

Others claim that the doctors’ union has been over-zealous in protecting its own, and that the doctors and lawyers have formed a powerful nexus in the fight against official clampdowns — to their mutual financial benefit.

 

Lucractive practice

 

The practice is hugely lucrative for doctors. Private doctors charge a minimum of 5,000 rupees (£60) for an abortion and often much more, depending on how far into the pregnancy the woman is. Dr Puneet Bedi, a specialist in fetal medicine, says: ‘Everybody knows that this technological wonder [ultrasound] is being used at random, to diagnose and kill girls. Foeticide is performed by trained professionals with licences and registration numbers; it is a multi-billion rupee industry.’

Many social workers in India believe it is unfair to accuse women of being complicit in this genocide, a denial of the girl’s fundamental human right of being allowed to be born. A few believe they are acting out of kindness: ‘Why bring a girl into the world who will be subjected to a dreadful life of misery?’ one told me.

There are many stories, even in relatively prosperous families, of young girls being undernourished while boys are well-fed, or girls being treated as maids while the sons lead a life of leisure.

But more often than not, an abortion to terminate the development of a female foetus is an action forced on a woman by the twin pressures of a powerful mother-in-law and husband. A key reason for the woman’s compliance is the fear that they may be replaced by a younger, more fertile woman who will produce sons if they do not submit.

Alarmingly, this fear has spread to Indian women in the UK who face the same patriarchal attitudes. An increasing number are travelling to India for an abortion, as far fewer questions are asked there than in Britain.

‘There is definitely an increase in abuse faced by Asian women in the UK who are mothers of girls,’ said Jasvinder Sanghera, who runs an advice centre in Derby. ‘We see women who are beaten or abused by their husband and especially their mother-in-law for producing daughters. They are not considered worthy or dutiful daughters-in-law.’

Tragically, there are already disturbing consequences of the falling ratio of females to males in India. In Gujarat, and some villages in Punjab, there are so few higher caste women that tribal women are being imported to service whole families of men — father, sons and brothers. The demand for sexual services is such that in some areas middlemen have started supplying girls for between 500 rupees (£6) and 60,000 rupees (£711) a month. The money goes to the husband or father who hires her out.

Long-term worries are not simply the fear that such an imbalance will result in the rise of prostitution and sex trafficking. The danger to women’s emotional and physical health from repeated abortions is huge.

Sex-selective abortions are often performed later in the pregnancy and are therefore more dangerous. Only 20 per cent of all abortions conform to the provisions of Indian law and those performed outside hospital often result in complications that lead to the deaths of thousands of woman.

So how can this demographic catastrophe be averted?

The Indian government is taking steps to impose regulations on the registered ultrasound clinics throughout the country, but Chetan Sharma, of Datamation, says that local officials are guilty of corruption and will simply continue to turn a blind eye.

Feminists believe that until Indian society begins to value women, no amount of laws will help.

‘Until women take control of their own lives and refuse to give in to pressure, nothing will change,’ says Rasil Basu, who has made a film about the crisis called Vanishing Daughters. ‘Empowerment of women is the only answer.’

Kalpana Sharma, of The Hindu newspaper, believes the beginnings of change have been prompted by recent revelations that girls are consistently doing better than their male counterparts at school and college and are beginning to branch into traditionally male fields like engineering and medicine.

‘I know women who have been persuaded to have multiple abortions and who feel absolutely rotten, but they have no choice — either abortion or divorce,’ says Sharma. ‘But I sense things are changing with a younger generation of very well-educated women who are not prepared to put up with this. Women are starting to find their courage, even if it means leaving their marriage.’

[Guest guest]

Don't you people have anything better to do than post the same old story again and again? It's so boring to read the same news about alleged female infanticide or whatever. And I don't see why this should be news at all, considering freedom of choice is given to every individual. What people do with their arms or legs or fetuses is their concern, why make an issue out of it? Why advertize it to the world, as if it's something extraordinary?

[Avinash]

 

What people do with their arms or legs or fetuses is their concern, why make an issue out of it?

 

According to you, killing a baby is not an issue at all. When people harm their arms and legs, then they are harming their body parts. But when they kill a foetus, they are killing life (that life is not theirs but somebody else's).

[Guest guest]

Abortion is abortion, so why would people particularly focus on this? It is simply to get attention, not because they actually care about girl babies. Suppose the same Indians had been 'killing' male fetuses instead of female, would there be any noise? Of course not.

[suchandra]

 

Don't you people have anything better to do than post the same old story again and again? It's so boring to read the same news about alleged female infanticide or whatever. And I don't see why this should be news at all, considering freedom of choice is given to every individual. What people do with their arms or legs or fetuses is their concern, why make an issue out of it? Why advertize it to the world, as if it's something extraordinary?

 

We surely would like to write and post only "nice" and "beautiful" news, however in this progressing aga of kali-yuga we also have to point out how society is being cheated by scrupelous government and next, what can be done to uplift society. Keeping silent means accepting - we're becoming involved in complicity.

[Guest guest]

From Little India magazine Aug 2006

p. 31 Interview with "Shashi Tharoor: The Next UN Secretary General?"

 

 

"...and in the broader world, if there's one thing I'd like to change, I wouldn't say "abolish war", because I don't think that is realistically possible. What I'd say instead is 'educate girls'.

 

"IT'S THE ONE THING THAT CAN TRANSFORM THE WORLD. Educate a boy and you educate a person; eduate a girl and you educate a family, a community, a society.

 

"Educated girls become better informed mothers and more empowered human beings: they are less vulnerable to AIDs and other diseases, they bring up educated children. That would be my crusade: to end female illiteracy."

 

 

 

 

It seems to me that if people viewed their daughters as potentially self-supporting human beings, then seems to me that the parents wouldn't be aborting them in such great numbers, at least in the poorer areas.

 

If people educated all children, including girls, so that the girls are not dependent on a man or her inlaws for their livelihood then girls wouldn't have only two viable career options: get married or become a sex worker.

 

 

 

If all children were provided with a free and appropriate education up to the post-doctoral level like how is done in many countries in the world such as Sweden, plus free and safe council housing, appropriate and free medical care plus as well as a living wage for just being alive, like is done in many countries in the world such as Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Sweden, then people would feel no need to kill their children for economic reasons.

 

All children have something that they could be contributing to the world. Leonardo da Vinci was the youngest of eleven children born to illiterate peasants in Italy. You never know what future genuis you are aborting.

 

 

 

People need to get over their fear of something bad is going to happen if you educate everyone in your society, including women. A society becomes more stable the more that EVERYONE is provided with enough food, shelter, water, education, and medical. Then boys don't have to get a job killing people or pimping and girls don't have to get a job as a sex worker.

 

 

 

If these people had a system in place where every one of those aborted children could get a free and appropriate education up to the college level, plus enough clean water, nutritious food, adequate clothing, safe shelter, and good medical care, then I am sure that fewer people would be aborting their children.

 

But will people do it? From what I understand, in Britain the rich are taxed very heavily at 50%, and in Sweden there is a 200% consumer tax on autos and other luxury items to reduce ostentation and provide for all of the citizens. In New Zealand everyone is covered if you get into an accident, visitor or resident. In Brazil even the poor get free plastic surgery as a medical benefit so that everyone can have good self-esteem.

 

 

Anyone who wants to help educate children, there are many volunteer organizations where you can travel to areas where teachers are needed. Kerala India has 90% literacy rate, above the US even. So it can be done.

[Guest guest]

Suchandara,

 

IF you really want to help, go to India and start educating the people over there, rather than complaining about it on the net. Be practical. Advertising this to the world doesn't help, it simply dramatizes the whole thing. Act, don't just complain.

[suchandra]

 

Suchandara,

 

IF you really want to help, go to India and start educating the people over there, rather than complaining about it on the net. Be practical. Advertising this to the world doesn't help, it simply dramatizes the whole thing. Act, don't just complain.

 

Thanks for your deep concern on this issue, but couldnt this also be said about any topic on this forum - go to Israel, go to Iskcon LA, go to Putin, go to JPS, go to Bush, etc., etc.? There is a growing sense of unease about the effectiveness of ISKCON's current preaching paradigms all over the world. The rising number of ads calling for pujaris, cooks, and preachers to reinforce existing ISKCON temples is a visible indicator that ISKCON's preaching performance has slowed down drastically and is in bad shape. I see SP's movement getting farther and farther away from what he wanted it to be. You just have to read whats going on to see that it's true!

Whats happening now in the land of religion - India, is surelly not solved by material adjustment but by uplifting societies with the yuga-dharma, at least this has to be understood. ISKCON should stop its disuniting, splitting up in many fractions policy and see what happens when devotees stop to preach and instead try to gratify their own interests. Is this not a topic for a Vaishnava forum?

[Guest guest]

I appreciate the news posts of Suchandra and Kulapavana because there is a news media blackout in some areas of the world.

 

 

 

As far as "the answer:, one possibility is: SP said of women, "They can be teachers and nurses, and they can be preachers." He did not say: "Can't do nuttin' but wave the ghee lamp all day long." He even said, "Your Deities are your children." And for those who are no longer on the bodily platform, from years of practicing KC, then I feel that "your children" means every child on this planet, in every nation and of every age: for all were once children.

 

 

 

So one possible solution is that there can be sister cities and sister communities where people doing well in the developed countries and who are interested in India, yoga, meditation can some do humanitarian tourism and "give back" to the host culture that is the undisputed source of yoga.

 

They have this in Kerala, that is why the literacy rate is 90%. You can go and stay at a cultural center that teaches classes in Indian culture: dance, cooking, ayur veda, etc. You pay a certain fee for your classes and room and board. If you volunteer at the local school and teach English for an hour a day, then your tuition is reduced. And the tuition is practically free to begin with by Western standards.

 

I can see how something like this would be an awesome WIN-WIN situation for everyone. SP said that girls can be teachers, nurses, and preachers. So if cultural/ eco/ humanitarian tourists come to visit India, then it would be great if there was a network of places they can check ahead of time and see where they can volunteer on their trip.

 

 

 

Right now in USA more people than ever are joining the Elder Peace Corps. The baby boomers are retiring and so far in US they can still get social security. So they get paid a salary for being old. Many retired people in US then move to Mexico as the dollar goes farther there.

 

I think it would be so cool to have this same principle at work in regards to lifting up India. Please somebody: set up a website where before people travel to India is posted places where you can volunteer in India. There already is Habitat for Humanity and Elder Peace Corps. Please set up something like an international version of Volunteer dot Org.

 

On the Volunteer dot Org website, I can type in any city and it has all of the volunteer things I can do in that city. On Freecycle website I can check and see who needs what I have a surplus of. It would be soooo great to have something like this specifically for India.

 

 

 

If everyone who loves Mother India, Bharata Varsa, would do some form of volunteer work then I think we can address all of these problems! If you teach one girl English and how to read and write, then she can teach many other people. Actually she can now be self-employed as a teacher.

 

It would also be nice if someone volunteers to teach girls some basic medical information such as sex education and tie it in with self-control that we learn from yoga. I don't mean sex education that would interfere with anyone's religious beliefs, I mean basic scientific data such as where a baby comes from, what diseases are out there, how the diseases are transmitted. This helps the girls to say "NO!" to peer pressure from the boys for sex.

 

Meg Ryan went to India as did Kate Hudson to Africa, and each wrote a beautiful piece [in Marie Claire magazine] about how there are programs like UNIFEM in which health care workers go to rural areas and educate girls in self-esteem, health, and sex issues [including abstinence education]. Then these girls become health care peer educators to the others in their city, town, or village.

 

 

 

As far as preachers I believe that this is being addressed, to teach young people about how to be preachers: the science of self-realization, self-control and yoga and tying it in with providing food, clothing, medical esp for the poor and street children students. I believe that Bhaktivedanta Ashram is doing this (jaya!) and also www astrojyoti dot com has a program like this, too.

 

They have something similar to this "sister city" concept at the Livermore Temple in CA (www dot livermoretemple dot org): the prosperous Silicon Valley Indians who go back to visit their families bring clothes with them for the poor. It is part of Hindu culture, anna daana, vidya daana, and kanya daana.

 

 

 

So I believe that you CAN dovetail learning about the latest news, spirituality in action, with ANY religion. Someone wrote a post "Western Culture is abominable" and in it was mentioned: "they call us [the devotees] parasites". Well do you know what I think is abominable and who the parasites are?

 

I think if you come into a host culture and you lie about how you collect money, you say the money is going to help the poor and needy, and then the money is really going to some guru who flies to London and buys a diamond and ruby encrusted gold pen, then flies back to Paris and throws it in the river, I think THAT is abominable and I think THAT is what a parasite is.

 

And I think that some Guru who beat children and then has a website in which he tells about how much food he ate that day and how good it was; meanwhile on another website I read about the kids he beat up don't have any food to eat: I think THAT is abominable and THAT is who a parasite is.

 

 

 

So if you really believe in Krsna then by golly this is a perfect opportunity for you to do counter-propaganda to all of the ill will created by the decades of abominable and parasitic behavior done in the name of God. You yourself do something positive and think of a way to dovetail KC with it.

 

"The difference between what we do, and what we are capable of doing, would solve most of the world's problems." -- Gandhi

 

Christianity: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Judaism: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

 

Islam: To gladden the heart of a human being, to feed the hungry, to help the afflicted, to lighten the sorrow of the sorrowful, to remove the wrongs of the injured: that person is the most beloved of God (Mohammed)

 

Hinduism: Good people proceed while considering what is best for others is also best for themselves

 

Zoroastrianiam: Whatever is disagreeable to you, do not do to others

Buddhism: Hurt not others with that which pains you

 

Confucianism: What you do not want done to yourself, do not do unto others.

Taoism: Regard your neighbor's gain as your own gain, and regard your neighbor's loss as your own loss.

 

-- from "I Can Make a Difference" by Marian Wright Edelman (MacArthur Foundation Genius Award, Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism, Presidential Medal of Freedom) c 2005 HarperCollins.

 

 

 

"In every community, there is work to be done

In every nation, there are wounds to heal

In every heart, there is the power to do it" --Marianne Williamson

 

I believe that there is a way to hold true to the ideals of religion and simultaneously help others. As far as where to begin? You can start by "shining a light on some small corner of the world" --Shunryu Suzuki.

 

Hare Krishna.

[Guest guest]

good post