3 million girls disappeared in just ten years in India due to a preference for male offspring. A photo report on the girls saved from infanticide, thanks to Terre des Hommes.
di Rossella Panuzzo e Federica Tourn
Around three million girls have "disappeared" in India in just ten years. This is the staggering figure that emerges from a count by the Indian Central Statistics Office, which found that the number of girls between the ages of zero and six fell from 78,830,000 in 2001 to 75,840,000 in 2011. Comparing the births of boys with those of girls revealed a stark imbalance between the sexes at birth: on average 112 boys for every 100 girls born. This is a phenomenon that can by no means be considered natural. Indeed, in the absence of external factors, the sex ratio at birth is essentially balanced: for every 100 girls, 102–106 boys are born.
The infanticide of newborn girls in India
The cause of this phenomenon lies in the marked preference of many Indian families (as well as Chinese, Pakistani, Vietnamese and even Armenian and Georgian ones) for male offspring. Despite having banned doctors from disclosing the sex of the unborn child to prospective parents, selective abortion is widespread in India and has replaced traditional infanticide of newborn girls among wealthier social groups. In rural areas, it still happens that newborn girls are left without milk, or given the sap of a poisonous plant to drink, or smothered with a pillow: it is the women of the family themselves — often the grandmother or the mother-in-law — who take care of this task. No girl, no dowry to set aside for marriage, even though Indian law prohibits it.
To counter this phenomenon, twenty years ago the Poonthaleer project was established by Terre des Hommes Core, with specific support from Terre des Hommes Italia, in Idappadi, in the district of Salem, one of the regions of Tamil Nadu most affected by the practice of female infanticide. The intervention in the area began in October 1998 thanks to the determination of Chezhian Ramu, the organisation's director, who with his team contacted pregnant women one by one to identify mothers "at risk" — that is, those who had already given birth to a girl: infanticide in fact became more likely from the second daughter onwards. Families were then engaged in a dialogue about the reasons that could lead to the killing of newborn girls: "it was never the mothers who wanted to suppress their daughters — Chezhian Ramu attests — but the fathers and mothers-in-law, driven by economic concerns or superstition."
Terre des Hommes Core offered families in difficulty counselling and support in raising the girls until they came of age. From 1998 to 2008, Poonthaleer — which in Tamil means "to blossom" — saved 1,558 girls from infanticide; of these, 90 per cent remained with their parents and 10 per cent were give
India's missing girls, and those who were saved. The photo report on survivors of infanticide
Rights — di Rossella Panuzzo
3 million girls disappeared in just ten years in India due to a preference for male offspring. A photo report on the girls saved from infanticide, thanks to Terre des Hommes.
