A girl child has the fundamental and equal right to live, but unfortunately in some prosperous states like Punjab, Haryana, and Maharashtra, etc. the situation is very serious. To ban female foeticide Natal Diagnostic Technique Regulation and Prevention of Misuse Act was passed but it could not yield the desired results, lamented Bijaya Laxmi Nanda, senior lecturer at Delhi University while addressing a conference on Female Foeticide – Causes and Solution held under the aegis of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind in the Capital on June 13.
Presiding over the conference, Nusrat Ali, Secretary General Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, said that on the day of judgement Allah will be so angry with the parents who kill their children that He will not talk to them; instead He will ask the child: tell Me what was your fault and why were you killed? And the culprit parents who commit this most reprehensible crime will be severely punished and condemned to hell. On the other hand the parents who bring up the girl child, educate and marry her off would be richly rewarded.
Swami Laxmi Shankaracharya, who came from Kanpur to attend the conference, said it is pitiable that still at some places even the mother mercilessly chokes to death the girl child. He praised Islam and the Holy Qur’ān for the human values it envisages, and said that if we follow the Qur’ān there would not be any case of female foeticide in society. He averred that today the Arab and Muslim countries are not facing this curse.
The main reason behind female foeticide is dowry. People fear that if they are blessed with two or three daughters they would have to face problems in nurturing, educating and marring them off. They fear that the valuable money they earned with great difficulty would be wasted on dowry.
The Shankaracharya cited the reprehensible advertisement promoting abortion which reads: “spend five hundred today to save five lakhs tomorrow”. He said female foeticide is a very dangerous disease which strikes at the very roots of human life and human dignity.
Jain Muni Y. Lokesh, who has written a book on female foeticide, said the rich, prosperous and educated people are committing this crime more than the poor; so poverty and lack of education are not responsible for this. He emphasised that unless we change our mentality this problem cannot be solved. Social organisations, religious gurus, etc. should take steps in this direction, but the best way to curb it is to have faith in religion and inculcate fear of God. It can restrain people from committing this heinous crime.
Ejaz Ahmed Aslam, Iqbal Mulla, M.D.Thomas, and J.S.Vedanti also expressed their thoughts on the problem.
A book Female Foeticide – Causes and Solution in Hindi published by Markazi Maktaba Islami Publishers was released in the conference.
In this conference, in which the representatives of almost every religion participated, the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind adopted the following resolutions:
- The Conference strongly condemns the heinous act of female foeticide and appeals to social workers and the public to take every possible measure to bring it to an end, and warn people against the social and moral devastations this serious crime might cause in the future. Female foeticide is the killing not only of an innocent girl but of the entire humanity as well.
- The government as well as courts of law ought to implement effectively and in letter and spirit the existing laws against it, and subject the persons involved in this crime to stringent punishment under the law. Likewise, the implementation of existing laws against dowry, which is the main cause of this evil, be made effective so that no innocent woman is done to death due to dowry.
- Strong action should be taken against the hospitals and medical centres where CT Scan of foetuses and abortions are done, the licences of such doctors and hospitals as are found guilty of this crime be cancelled, and they be heavily fined and severely punished.
- This Conference warns people that if the pace of female foeticide is allowed to continue then in the coming years our country would fall victim to a great sexual, moral and social crisis as a result of imbalance in the sex ratio. The only way out of this problem is that the entire society takes a pledge to bring it to an end and acts unitedly.
- NGOs should come forward to raise voice against female foeticide, and the government should extend every possible help to such NGOs.
- This Conference suggests that all government, non-government and semi-government institutions / organisations working in this field should seek the cooperation of religious organisations and individuals in rooting out this evil and in preventing it from raising its head in the future. The Conference feels that this evil cannot be rooted out only by means of legislation. Therefore, the Ulema and religious leaders of all faiths have to play their effective role in this direction.
- This Conference feels that the said evil is also deeply related to the status given to woman in the family and society. Hence the pressing need to search, discover and determine the correct viewpoint and its proper practical manifestation of her status.
This conference strongly felt that the evils encouraging female foeticide are basically materialism, capitalism and consumerism, and underlined the need to make all out efforts to rebuild our society on the firm foundations of love and fear of God, accountability in the hereafter before God, and sense of responsibility.