The New Sunday Express, Chennai October 5, 2008
i.witness
Section 2
i.witness
Section 2
Where are the baby girls?
In Andhra Pradesh’s tribal hamlets daughters are at a severe disadvantage.
If a girl escapes death at infancy she is considered lucky, but not for long.
She may be sold for a sum ranging from Rs. 2,000 to Rs. 12,000,
V K Rakesh Reddy finds.
Infant mortality is a given in any poor community, but in Andhra Pradesh’s tribal hamlets (tandas) of Devarakonda mandal, mothers often "lose" their daughters. It is quite common for at least one girl child in a family to go missing this way. On the very day this reporter sat down to file this story, a little girl was rescued from a fate that could have been anything from being sold to a stranger to being done to death.
The latter seems to be a common fate of girls in several mandals, Devarakonda, Dindi, Chandampeta, PA Pally and Chintapally in Nalgonda district. If a girl escapes death at infancy she is considered lucky – but not for long. She is usually sold for a sum ranging from Rs. 2,000 to Rs. 12,000.
There are over 300 tandas in these mandals adjoining the Nallamala forests of the state. Its inhabitants are essentially people whose world collapsed when the British Raj took away their right to the forests around which their lives revolved. Since then, they have more or less drifted on the margins, mostly illiterate and untrained, desperately poor.
Ten years ago, Lavdiya Bheetni of Jodubai tanda sold her daughter – her ninth child – for Rs. 2,000 to someone she had never even heard of. Her previous eight deliveries had resulted in three stillborn babies. Of the five who survive, four are girls and one is a boy.
"We had to sell her," she says. "We had nothing to eat and had taken to begging on the streets of Hyderabad. That Rs. 2,000 saw us back in the tanda along with our other kids," Bheetni adds with a shudder (many women in her position have been arrested and prosecuted by police on the basis of media reports).
In the absence of official records, it may be surmised that Devarakonda mandal has seen around 3,000 infanticides, foeticides or illegal adoptions over the last 10 years. Even this figure could be a gross underestimate.
Nearly every family has a horrific tale to tell. Indravat Vijaya is a mother of three, including a boy who is chronically ill. She gave away a girl, child to "Buyala" (Telugu for cradle), a body funded by Green Cross, a local NGO. It has kept cradles at various locations where mothers can leave an unwanted child without questions being asked. The child is cared for by the NGO or under the Integrated Child Development Services scheme.
Asked how she felt giving her two-day-old baby away, Vijaya’s eyes brimmed over, even as people around her described her helplessness in the matter.
"You will not understand the pain, sir. Only a mother will," says D. Venkatamma.
"Such stories are common here. A few years ago, these people used to sell their children. But once it became public knowledge, they fell back on an even worse option – killing the girl child," adds Venkataramana, who heads Green Cross. The NGO works in the tribal hamlets on various issues.
The daughters that remain with their parents generally suffer from malnutrition. A great many babies suffer from Kwashiorkor (a type of malnutrition commonly believed to be caused by insufficient protein intake) and Marasmus (a form of severe protein-energy malnutrition characterized by energy deficiency which often proves fatal), although official records might gloss over this fact.
"Had it not been for protein supplements given by dedicated ICDS supervisors on a day-to-day basis, things would have been much worse," says Venkataramana, acknowledging the services of Bhagyamma and Venkatamma, both of whom are ICDS supervisors stationed at Devarakonda.
There are no roads to Pandiriguntapalli tanda and other such places. Even if there are, the bus services are few and far between. This means that pregnant women have no chance of anything like expert pre- and post-natal care – if they can afford it in the first place. Many give birth in the hamlet itself.
But the root of the problem is the irrational preference for a male child. Ironically, even the women prefer boys. "What good is a female child?" is the rhetorical question of Islavat Suvali, a celebrity of sorts in Pandiriguntla tanda for her "feat" of giving birth to three male children consecutively.
Another major reason for girl children being sold or killed is the belief that a woman will "under any circumstances" conceive a male child in her fifth pregnancy.
"Their husbands ask them to come home with a male child from their mothers’ homes," says Lavdiya Kesli. "If the child is a female, often the maternal grandparents themselves put it to death or abandon it. They are afraid that if the son-in-law learns that he has had a daughter he will take another wife," she explains. Kesli, and elderly woman, herself gave birth to 12 children, 11 of them daughters.
"I gave two of my daughters to the same man because the first wasn’t able to conceive a male child," she says. "It is better that he took her sister rather than some unrelated woman," she maintains.
The state government has not been idle, but seems unable to make any headway. It announced a package of Rs. 26 crore for the region some time ago. Some of the money went into the hands of middlemen while the rest was used to start a sheep-rearing scheme to give the tribals a source of livelihood. The intention was good, but the scheme was ill-conceived as Devarakonda gets hardly any rain. Moreover, the tribal areas are excessively rocky. Pasturage, consequently, proved inadequate. In the end, defeated, the tribals simply slaughtered most of the animals.
The government should study ground realities carefully before taking up schemes, suggests Venkataramana. Something like that is certainly needed f Nalgonda’s daughters are to be saved from death or worse.
The latter seems to be a common fate of girls in several mandals, Devarakonda, Dindi, Chandampeta, PA Pally and Chintapally in Nalgonda district. If a girl escapes death at infancy she is considered lucky – but not for long. She is usually sold for a sum ranging from Rs. 2,000 to Rs. 12,000.
There are over 300 tandas in these mandals adjoining the Nallamala forests of the state. Its inhabitants are essentially people whose world collapsed when the British Raj took away their right to the forests around which their lives revolved. Since then, they have more or less drifted on the margins, mostly illiterate and untrained, desperately poor.
Ten years ago, Lavdiya Bheetni of Jodubai tanda sold her daughter – her ninth child – for Rs. 2,000 to someone she had never even heard of. Her previous eight deliveries had resulted in three stillborn babies. Of the five who survive, four are girls and one is a boy.
"We had to sell her," she says. "We had nothing to eat and had taken to begging on the streets of Hyderabad. That Rs. 2,000 saw us back in the tanda along with our other kids," Bheetni adds with a shudder (many women in her position have been arrested and prosecuted by police on the basis of media reports).
In the absence of official records, it may be surmised that Devarakonda mandal has seen around 3,000 infanticides, foeticides or illegal adoptions over the last 10 years. Even this figure could be a gross underestimate.
Nearly every family has a horrific tale to tell. Indravat Vijaya is a mother of three, including a boy who is chronically ill. She gave away a girl, child to "Buyala" (Telugu for cradle), a body funded by Green Cross, a local NGO. It has kept cradles at various locations where mothers can leave an unwanted child without questions being asked. The child is cared for by the NGO or under the Integrated Child Development Services scheme.
Asked how she felt giving her two-day-old baby away, Vijaya’s eyes brimmed over, even as people around her described her helplessness in the matter.
"You will not understand the pain, sir. Only a mother will," says D. Venkatamma.
"Such stories are common here. A few years ago, these people used to sell their children. But once it became public knowledge, they fell back on an even worse option – killing the girl child," adds Venkataramana, who heads Green Cross. The NGO works in the tribal hamlets on various issues.
The daughters that remain with their parents generally suffer from malnutrition. A great many babies suffer from Kwashiorkor (a type of malnutrition commonly believed to be caused by insufficient protein intake) and Marasmus (a form of severe protein-energy malnutrition characterized by energy deficiency which often proves fatal), although official records might gloss over this fact.
"Had it not been for protein supplements given by dedicated ICDS supervisors on a day-to-day basis, things would have been much worse," says Venkataramana, acknowledging the services of Bhagyamma and Venkatamma, both of whom are ICDS supervisors stationed at Devarakonda.
There are no roads to Pandiriguntapalli tanda and other such places. Even if there are, the bus services are few and far between. This means that pregnant women have no chance of anything like expert pre- and post-natal care – if they can afford it in the first place. Many give birth in the hamlet itself.
But the root of the problem is the irrational preference for a male child. Ironically, even the women prefer boys. "What good is a female child?" is the rhetorical question of Islavat Suvali, a celebrity of sorts in Pandiriguntla tanda for her "feat" of giving birth to three male children consecutively.
Another major reason for girl children being sold or killed is the belief that a woman will "under any circumstances" conceive a male child in her fifth pregnancy.
"Their husbands ask them to come home with a male child from their mothers’ homes," says Lavdiya Kesli. "If the child is a female, often the maternal grandparents themselves put it to death or abandon it. They are afraid that if the son-in-law learns that he has had a daughter he will take another wife," she explains. Kesli, and elderly woman, herself gave birth to 12 children, 11 of them daughters.
"I gave two of my daughters to the same man because the first wasn’t able to conceive a male child," she says. "It is better that he took her sister rather than some unrelated woman," she maintains.
The state government has not been idle, but seems unable to make any headway. It announced a package of Rs. 26 crore for the region some time ago. Some of the money went into the hands of middlemen while the rest was used to start a sheep-rearing scheme to give the tribals a source of livelihood. The intention was good, but the scheme was ill-conceived as Devarakonda gets hardly any rain. Moreover, the tribal areas are excessively rocky. Pasturage, consequently, proved inadequate. In the end, defeated, the tribals simply slaughtered most of the animals.
The government should study ground realities carefully before taking up schemes, suggests Venkataramana. Something like that is certainly needed f Nalgonda’s daughters are to be saved from death or worse.
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