So who killed the baby?
Was it (presumably) the parents who first stuck the infant in a polythene bag and threw it in the storm water drain? Or, the dog who fed the baby to her puppies?
In India, babies disposed of in such a manner (in drains and garbage dumps, thrown out of hospital windows or buried alive), are almost without exception female. Girls in India are still considered a burden. Their value, socially and economically, is far less than that of a boy. An abandoned male baby almost always has an obvious physical deformity.
Since 1992, Jayalalitha's Cradle Baby Scheme, which attempts to ensure that (primarily female) infants that might otherwise have been killed are given for adoption, is estimated to have saved over 3,000 infants in Tamil Nadu. Cradles are placed outside hospitals, primary health care centres, police stations and childrens' homes for parents to place unwanted babies in. These babies are then given up to an adoption agency.
Since then several Indian states have adopted the scheme.
Activists argue that the scheme isn't without its failings. It isn't possible to trace an infant once it enters the system, and so there's no way of knowing when and, in fact, if the child is adopted.
Once the child is given up for adoption the agency isn't required to keep tabs on its welfare.
But this is true of all children who enter the adoption system and isn't an indictment of the scheme as much as it is an indictment of the scheme of things.
It has also been argued that the scheme legitimizes the abandonment of female infants.
If the parents mentioned in the story above had had access to a cradle, would they have chosen to place their baby in it? And would that option, given however little or much we know of the Cradle Baby Scheme, prove to be the better one for the baby?
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4 comments:
But it requires a lot more to look after a child doesn't it? Its more often choice than money that plays the role here, don't you think?
Can't believe this treacherous inhumanity... :( Very sad
Hi Sonia,
Take a look at this:
'In 2000 the newspapers carried reports that Bibi Jagir Kaur, a Shiromani Akhali Dal councillor in Punjab, had allegedly abducted her daughter Harpreet, subjected her to an abortion, given her an overdose of pills and consigned her to the flames. This was because the young woman in question had married in secret while studying at a medical college. To date no one has been punished and witnesses in the face of muscle and money power have now turned hostile.'
Rest here: http://ultraviolet.in/2011/03/22/daughters-are-not-for-killing/
It is very sad indeed. Good on Sonia to highlight this in her blog. We need more people highlighting these sort of social issues so that Indians will understand what they are doing. People who are educated and rich have a very important rtole to play in elevating the social structure of Indians.
http://www.allnewindia.com
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