While the Parliament was passing the Bill to prevent child marriages, students of Delhi University raised their fears and concerns about the vanishing girl child in India. A group of students from Delhi University’s Miranda House College organised a skit where they vehemently showed disgrace towards female foeticide and child marriage that still exists in major sections of Indian society.
“I have friends in class who come from families where they are not wanted. Even though we are all from a posh college, the mindset is still the same,” one student of Miranda House College of DU was reported as saying.
“Some of my friends almost have to beg their parents to let them study here in college because all that their parents want is for them to get married off,” said another.
The Rajya Sabha passed the Prevention of Child Marriage Bill, 2004 by voice vote after Minister of Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdhury pointed out that the girl child has become an “endangered species” and we are in a state akin to “emergency”.
“If you look at the status and the life of a girl child, she is viewed as a disposable, transferable commodity,” says Renuka Chaudhary.
The story of India’s vanishing daughters is not new – neither are awareness campaigns about it. It is interesting to note that even in the upper middle class South Delhi families, the average sex ratio is a dismal 817 girls per 1000 boys.
“Female foeticide is a market driven organised crime and the ultra sound industry and the mainstream medical professionals, the radiologists, and the Gynecologists are responsible for it. These are the people the ones who make huge profits out of it,” Gynaecologist Puneet Bedi says.
A recent study on female foeticide had even pointed out that 24,000 girl children go missing in India every year. It will take a lot more than this to change those figures.