Hi Fellow classmates,
There are many crimes that are taking place in our society and one of them is female infanticide. Female infanticide is the act of killing a female infant. This blog will be focusing on female infanticide happening in India.
India is a patriarchal society in which a cultural bias against women has contributed to frequent cases of female infanticide, particularly in poor and rural areas. Some issues that lead to female infanticide are lack of education, traditions, poverty, cultural beliefs, dowry abuse, neglecting of young females and sexism. This is also because women are considered to be more "polluted" than the men of their castes because of menstruation and childbirth, which are considered to be dirty and "polluting".
The sad part is that killing a female infant is not considered a crime or no one is punished for doing such an act. Dowry is the payment, in the form of money, land or household items, given to a bride by the bride’s family so she could establish a home for her new family. Dowry is one of the major causes that lead to female infanticide. Most of the pregnant females turn to sex-selective abortion so that they don’t have a girl child. Fortunately, the government has passed laws on dowry marriage and sex-selective abortion.
Questions:
Do you think that the factors that lead to female infanticide can lead to such a crime?
Why does the government not pass out laws that are against this?
Why are having boys not look down upon? Is this because men have always dominated women?
What do you think about this cruel act?
Why is it difficult for females to survive in conditions like these?
Thank you for reading this!
Looking forward to your responses!!
Here are some videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2FI0shxYgE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlRe1YlHk_o&feature=related
Similar to this, the Arab pagans in pre-Islamic times used to bury females alive! This was widely done throughout the Arab world until ONE man stepped forward to put a stop to it: Prophet Mohammad (P.B.U.H). I rememeber Jawa asking if one person can make a difference during my seminar, and I still say yes. All it takes is for one person to speak out against such things and bring people back to the path of humanity. Prophet Mohammad (P.B.U.H) was a male who continuously fought for women's rights as well as protected children. I believe men and women should speak out against this cruel and disgusting act and put a STOP to it!
ReplyDeleteI agree, it has to take everyone’s strength to change something like this. I really hate all the discrimination that goes around against women. It’s not right and it shouldn’t happen. This is a cruel act and no one has the right to take away someone else’s life, and especially knowing that a parent can do this to their own child is even worst. This is murder, if other murders haven’t been ignored then why should this be ignored as well? I think it’s difficult for females to survive these conditions due to the pressure of the society. The society expects women to have baby boys for their own benefits and I think when a certain pressure is put on women then they have no other option, then to kill their own child. The government varies in every country. I some counties this is illegal and in some it’s not because it’s not considered an important factor. That’s why in some counties no one really pays attention. I think even if there was a law passed as long as there is money involved (dowry) in a girl’s marriage, this will continue to happen. It’s all about the money and nothing else.
ReplyDeleteThe videos are so sad. It actually gave me goose bumps!
ReplyDeleteI think that the factors mentioned above that lead to female infanticide are true and it DOES lead to such a crime. There's a lot of poverty in India, and that is the reason why there are all "nonsense" beliefs. Around fifteen years back, people in rural areas used to get their child married at the age of 7-8 (especially girls), so that their girls do not get into love marriages and live according to what their parents decide. Was this the right way to treat girls?
Even today, at some places, child marriages do exist but Government is working on it.
Government has passed out a law on sex-determination due to increase in female infanticides. The law said that no hospital would conduct sex-determination tests. This has helped India to reduce these killings. Even laws against dowry have been passed.
Generally, men are the one or considered as dominating as compared to females. But in India, men are considered too superior than females and this is the major problem that contributes to this issue.
I think Government is taking possible steps to stop this. I heard that couples who have a single girl child are being funded after Grade 10 in India and before that the education is free. So by funding, they can continue to educate the girl child.
Thank you for posting this, I never knew this kind of inhuman practice existed in the world currently. I knew that 1400 years ago the arab pagans in the pre-islmamic times, use to bury their female daughters alive. Prophet Muhammed (Peace Be Upon Him) single handedly stood up for this inhuman act, and eventually led to it being not practised again by the Arabs. We in this society have to step up and make this know to society, about how our daughters are being killed day by day. Another shocking thing is that, this is the first time I heard about this going on in india, we have to spread the world and bring awareness to this issue.
ReplyDeleteI think the main cause of female infanticide is because women are not able to provide for the family. The day women start earning the same as men, I guarantee this will come to an end.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the ability to give birth is the best gift that God gave to women. To all those people who think the ability to give birth to a child is dirty should know that if women are not able to give birth then this world will come to an end. The main problem that I have noticed so far is the lack of education. People are not educated enough to make intelligent choices.
I would also like to say that people do not happily kill their female children. There has to be a cause, a very strong reason and need to act this cruelly. I am not justifying their reason to act this way but I am only saying that it is very easy to judge another culture and say it is wrong. It takes a lot of courage and open-mind to actually understand why they kill the females.
I completely agree with Gurpreet in terms of the need of education. Families are making these decisions because they don't know any better. They don't know the value of a girl.
ReplyDeleteBoys are seen as more valuable to families in India because boys stay with the family after marriage. The parents will have someone to takecare of them because the boys furture wife will be home to take care of them (but if the get rid of all the girls, their boys have no one to marry). Boys also provide farm labour, or someone to take over the family business, but what I think is the most important is that boys carry the family name. In Indian families, the family name is the most important thing. They pride themselves on having a good, clean, honourable family name.
I do believe the government is taking steps to eliminate female infanticide. In Delhi, they have a "Girl Child Protection Scheme" which depostis money into the account of every girl born in a government hospital or maturnity home. The girl then recieves the money when she is 18 and achieved a certain level of education. It's programs like these that will help decrease, maybe even eliminate, female infaticide.
I am aware of this topic really well. It is really sad and painful to see this happening to inncconet young baby girls. It is a critical concern in “third world” countries. Another country where is issues is highly evident is China. One of the major causes of female infanticide is the government policy “One Child per Family”. The intension of government on introducing this policy was to keep the population in balanced and maintains it. They wanted to improve the quality of life of the population. As mention within the post that poverty is one of the reasons why female infanticide is being done. Poverty was the reasons why killing of babies occur in China because within the policy parents who had more than one child may have their wages reduce. But the Chinese government had introduced new laws to tackle this issue such as, marriage law forbids this inhumane act and also use of ultra-sounds and technologies that use to determine the sex of the fetus is ban so that families are not able to decide the fate of the child. But it always makes me think that what if the son does not want to take care of the parents during their old age and tries to get rid of them? Where would these old parents seek for help? I feel very sorry for those parents to kill their own child just to get a son and later on the son refuse to take care of them. I agree with Gurpreet that the day when females started to earn the same as men. When society would know that a female can also take care of the parents and run a family, all this will come to an end.
ReplyDelete