Girl child still considered a ‘burden’
Shariq Majeed
Tribune News Service

Rajouri, July 17
Awareness programmes launched for the empowerment of women across the globe notwithstanding, the reality at grass-roots level remains unchanged. Even today celebrations are held at the birth of a male child while a female child is considered
a “burden”.

Recently, at the birth of a boy, a father, who happens to be a gazetted officer in a government department, distributed money among ward boys at the district hospital here and celebrated the occasion. He, however, admitted that he would have been disappointed at the birth of a female child.

In a recent incident that could send shivers down the spine of any human being, the police recovered the bodies of two female infants, one just a day- old and the other premature (about eight-month-old) from two drains in Rajouri. Sources say while one girl was choked to death, the other was killed with a sharp-edged weapon.

“I do not think this is an isolated case. Who knows how many of the female infants are killed?” says Sunil Gupta, in charge of the Rajouri cremation ground, while confirming the burial of the bodies of the two newborn girls.

A doctor at a hospital here, while commenting on the attitude of the families, said, “I am also a woman. It really hurts to see that parents feel happy when a baby boy is born, but if a female child is born, they consider her as a burden. Some parents are so cruel that they make all attempts to abort the girl child after knowing the sex of the foetus”.

A social activist, Nighat Shafi, says, “Parents would not be unhappy at the birth of a girl child, but the customs of society make them feel like that”.