Hyderabad: Every year, the United Nations has been observing October 11 as International Day of the Girl Child since the year 2012. Much before the UN, India began observing January 24th as the National Girl Child Day, since the year 2009.
Notwithstanding this symbolism, gender discrimination continues to rule the roost in the country as it has been for centuries.
India is unpopular for its general discrimination against the girl child. Pre-natal sexual determinations are conducted on prospective mothers to find out the gender of the baby in the womb.
Female fetuses are mercilessly aborted. Considered as a burden, the girl child is married off at a very tender age by her own family. There is no end to the story of inhuman treatment meted out to the girl child thus.
In the year 1961, there were 976 girl children for every 1000 boys aged six years.
This ratio of girl children fell to 927 by 2001 and by 2011 it slipped further to 918.
This clearly shows how society’s discriminatory attitude has been lethal towards the girl child.
The NDA government had introduced Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao programme in 2015 to save the girl child.
The Center claims that the campaign has yielded good results as the ratio rose by 16 points to 934.
On the occasion of National Girl Child Day, the government announced that the gender ratio improved in 422 out of 640 districts and it has shown considerable impact in States like UP, Punjab and Haryana.
The government also claims that there has been considerable progress in the registration of neonatal mothers, institutional deliveries and secondary school level presence of girl children.
However, Covid-19 has cast its dark shadow on the girl child’s future. While 950 girls for every 1000 boys is a healthy ratio, India is still far away from achieving it.
The huge number of child marriages that took place during the pandemic times was truly heart-wrenching.
The nation can progress with the confidence only in the ambience in which girl can grow empowered.
It is worth noting that as a corollary to the Beijing Declaration of 1995, the United Nations had passed a resolution in 2011, stating that the girl child has the right to education and good health.
The success stories of the likes of Shafali Verma, Mythili Thakur, Priyanka Paul, Hima Das, Shivangi Pathak, Ridhima Pandey are giving hope.
At the same time, the global nutrition report announced that in India one out of every two women of childbearing age are suffering from anemia.
In its report last year, CRY, an NGO stated that brides in 57 per cent of the marriages taking place in rural India are aged between 15 to 19 years. The organization has also announced that 72 lakh child marriages took place in the country during that year.
The National Family Health Survey has revealed that women in seven States have complained about worsening domestic violence scenario, the sex ratio has fallen in eight States and women in 9 States narrated that they had undergone sexual assaults as children.
The survey outcome is an eye-opener on the situation at the ground level. The World Bank had prescribed that nations should formulate policies that enable 12 years long uninterrupted education for the girl child.
Way back in 2018, the World Bank had warned that the Countries that are lagging on this front are losing productivity by 15 to 30 lakh crore US dollars annually.
India is at the forefront of such unfortunate nations. The country’s Human Development Index and Development rate will surge forth like racehorses when the country implements policies that ensure to the girl child safety and security, healthy growth, good education, eradication of child marriages and female feticide along with steps for the empowerment of women. Undoubtedly!
