10 million murders unpunished

10 million murders unpunished

10,000,000 female infants killed in the past 20 years in India.
There are states like Haryana where there are just 760 females for every 1000 males.
Causes: sex selective abortion, female infanticide.

Why is there a preference for a male child?

1. You need a son to carry your family name , to ensure continuity of your family line.
What family name and lineage are we talking about when one is struggling to provide two square meals for everyone in the family? The only things that are being continued are more misery, poverty and perhaps some genetic disorders.

2. The belief that you need a son to perform your last rites so your soul will attain peace.
If they really believe in the above, do these people think of what punishment there may be for killing a child? or do their scripts give them a justification for that too? ( I do not believe in heaven and hell but I do hope they rot in something close to hell. I would like to invent a Hell for them right here as a deterrent for others.)

3.A girl means expense as you have to pay dowry and get her married.
Educate the girl please and she would take care of herself without necessarily needing a man to support her. Or she will find a man who is willing to marry her for what she is and not for what she brings.And how many years is it since dowry became a punishable offence? Please make the punishments more stringent.

4.You need a son to take care of you in old age while a daughter goes away to another's house after marriage.
Well there are good for nothing sons who have no means to take care of their parents. There are drunkards who are a constant source of trouble. There are those that leave their parents in old age home as the parents and wives do not get along.
So how can you be so sure that your son will? Make sure to stand on your two feet at any age.

5.I already have a few daughters. So I want a son so the family is complete.
Father, mother, daughter and son - looks like a perfect picture in photos but life is never perfect. Daughter or son they are your children. How many abortions will your wife go through? How many girl children will you kill? If you still feel that you need a boy, adopt one.That is a certain way of making sure of the gender of the child.

Half a million girl children killed every year and yet there are people who object to banning of gender detection tests. Why?
"I want to get my blues or pinks correct." "I want to start relating to my child from the time he/ she is in my womb. It would help if I knew if it was a boy or a girl." (why would you communicate differently depending on the gender of the child? is there something called bluetalk and pinktalk!?)
Anyway these are "nice-to-have" desires that need to take a back seat in the context of the larger issue which merits the banning of such tests.
And some argue that it is a "right" you cannot take away from the parents.
What about the "right" of that female child to live?

And this is a country where women are supposed to be seen as images of Goddess Durga and Lakshmi. What a country of hypocrites we are? We invoke our scripts and religion when it suits us and do what is convenient for us when it suits us.
With so many years of foeticide, Haryana already faces a situation when there are not enough brides for all the men. So men are buying brides from other States for as little as Rs. 5,000 - a state where buffalos cost more Rs. 40,000. These women are available to all the men in the family. A slave wife for the entire family - can their be a worse degradation for a woman?

I know it is futile to write about it in this forum as no one who reads this needs to be told all these facts. I am just steaming off - trying to see in what way we can stop this crime and injustice. We can inform our maids, perhaps sponsor the education of their girl child. We can make sure never to make gender discriminatory statements and counter them whenever someone says it even in jest.We can treat our sons and daughters equally. We can boycott films and TV programs that have gender discriminatory themes or dialogues. (protest loudly even when it is a "superstar" who says:"after all a woman!") We can be examples of what a woman can be and can do.We can help change the mindset.

Or
we can simply ignore the statistic that half a million girl babies are killed every year and read the supplement on woman power that came with India Today.

P.S. For some more on the same topic here is a poignant and better researched post by The Rational Fool.