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| Lets Save Laado |
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| CHALO BETI KO BACHAYEIN |
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| The first question parents ask at the birth of the child, in all society all over the world, is always the same – “is it a boy or girl”. In our country killing of the female child is being practice from early stages. Earlier because the scientific techniques were not advanced and it was impossible to determine the sex of the child, the killing of the female child took the form of adding opium to the infants’ milk by suffocating the infant under the mother after birth or else by plainly ill-treating daughters. The advancement in medical science and technology as regards pre natal sex determination technique has been widely and grossly misused rather abused in the Indian orthodox, conservative society. Even in the 21st Century the blessing with a female baby hardly brings cordial happiness in the majority of the Indian society. This medical advancement is badly used in killing the girl in mother’s womb. |
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Women are the receiving end in Indian society. They are ill treated or tortured at every stage. A girl child is in bondage from her very childhood. She is under constant, vigil First by the parents, then her husband and finally her own children. Not only that, she is often condemned to death even before she is born. This is called female killing in the womb itself.
In ancient India the birth of a girl child was hailed as auspicious. An old Indian proverb lies down that a home without a daughter is like a body without soul. The coming of a daughter in the house was compared with the advent of Laxmi, the Goddess of wealth and Saraswati, the Goddess of fine arts. The usual blessing of a father at the time of his daughter’s marriage was: “May you excel in learning and public speaking”. No ceremony was considered complete without presence of women. The belief was that “No home is complete without a woman”.
The situation, however drastically changed during the Middle Ages when India was subjected to frequently foreign invasions. The invaders booty also comprised of women suffered badly, infanticide and ‘Purdah’ became prevalent. Sending a girl to school became risky. There was, therefore, sudden decline in female literacy and the position of women in society. This tradition lasting till today and the killing of fetus is started with a boom.
There are severing laws against the misuse of parental diagnostic techniques, which are meant only for detecting abnormalities in the unborn infant. Not a single case has been field so far under the law, which forbids such an unethical practice.
The greatest tragedy is that women themselves permit the death of their daughters as mercy killing. Unwanted baby girls are often left on the road or in the maternity homes at night. This unhealthy practice has caused great imbalance in the ratio of boys and girls in several states and communities. To prevent this situation we must provide proper education and the laws, that are presently could not trap the criminal, should be strict. So those, all the person who are engaged in this child infanticide crime, think twice before doing it.
Although sex determination and sex selection is a criminal offence in India, it changes nothing. Everywhere, people are paying to know the sex of an unborn child and paying more to abort the female child. The technology has even reached remote areas of the country through facilities like mobile clinics. People are getting sex determination done even for the first child.
"Equality is a fundamental right," but where is the gender equality when one million girl are killed every year before birth itself. Therefore we need to understand the fact that our situation is really alarming and it is the high time to do something effective to stop this.
The type of status assigned to woman in any society reflects the nature of its cultural richness and the level of its civilizational standards. Hence Swami Vivekananda said, “That country and that nation which did not respect women have never become great nor will ever in future”.
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