My blogger’s block has become more or less a permanent thing now. As if to make up, I am spending more and more time on flickr, mostly tring not to die of envy at the astounding talent I come across on that forum.
And once in a while, I come across such pictures too that tell a story. Not a dew-on-flower or red-orange-purple sunset story (which are all magical in their own way and make me gasp – often). But a sad story. A story that has been told before. And needs to be told again and again.
This is from Wam Mosley‘s photo stream on flickr [thanks, Chandru, for pointing this out]. The Chinese lettering translates, he says, into “girls can also inherit the blood” – which means girl children deserve to be as much part of your family a boy children. And in China, the horror of female infanticide is increasing; the one child policy makes it worse.
The idea is that if you have a daughter then she will get married, therefore losing the family name, and more than likely she will move in with the husband and they will lose her income into the family.
I kept thinking as I read this – with a daughter, you will lose your family name and the income she gets in every month… think of all that you will gain.
I particularly loved the way this pictures ends with a hazy feel… as if to point to the uncertain future and a young couple, a boy and a girl walking together there… Read also the discussions on this photograph
As an aside, I came across this comment from someone who had recently adopted a baby from China – Interestingly enough we were allocated a boy which is very odd considering 98% of adoptions in China are female (maybe this sign is working?). He is a great kid and we will never forget the country that gave us the opportunity to become parents. I remember reading somewhere that in India too, a majority of adoptions are of baby girls. I wonder about this… Why do people who adopt prefer baby girls?
My earlier posts on this issue : Headed towards Mathrubhoomi – It is believed that the Chinese kill over a million girls every year in order to have a boy. It is also believed that Indians are about to overtake the Chinese in a few years.
Nothing but a massive education and information campaign by educated citizens is the only way to remove this blot from our society. If we are not to become China, the China of unspoken brutality and discrimination against women, then we should forget about government support, but instead rely on a massive force of volunteers to fan out and inch by inch remove this practice. How can we call ourselves civilized with this institutionalized violence against one half of society? What are the Swamis and Ammas doing?
female infanticide has always been practised in China since ages…maybe one child policy is adding fuel to it….infact I believe the problem is much worse compared to India
one thought which always keeps on coming in my mind is why the female sex has always been prejudiced across the cultures and no matter what period of history we peek into…any thoughts /articles on that??
I was actually the one who commented about our adoption Wam Mosely’s Flickr pic. I hope I did not give the impression that we entered the China adoption process wanting a girl and ending up with a boy. In our application to adopt, we did not put down a sexual preference – you don’t get this choice when you have a child biologically so I don’t believe in choosing a sex when you adopt either. We were only surprised statiscally and were by no means disappointed with the fact that we became parents to a boy – in fact I cannot picture it any other way now. I have heard of people choosing to adopt from China primarily for the reason that they will be allocated a girl – this is not the case with us. We chose China as we already had a cultural interest in the country, it’s people and it’s culture and we felt that this was important as we plan to incorporate as much Chinese culture into our child’s life as we can.
In your blog you ask “Why do people who adopt prefer baby girls?” I don’t think people who adopt generally prefer baby girls as you have stated. The reason 98% of adoptions from China are females (and I am guessing Indian adoptions would have similar statistics) is more to do with the female to male ratio of children available for adoption due to deeply rooted cultural beliefs as well as govt policy rather than adoptive parents being selective of their child’s sex. We have many friends who have adopted from Korea where for reasons unbeknown to me, the majority of adoptions are boys. I would imagine that if you were to look at statistics of international adoptions from all countries that have adoption programs (including Russia, Bolivia, Columbia, Korea, Ethiopia to name a few) you would find a more balanced male to female ratio than just looking at China and India as examples.
China is changing its policies and has started offering financial assistance in some provinces to parents who choose to keep girls (whether this be monetary or by providing free education or waiving the one child policy). There are also many billboards going up around China with similar slogans to the one in Wam’s pic. The infanticide and abandonments of females in China is a very sad thing and it will take a lot more than what the govt is doing now to reduce the numbers significantly but at least they have started doing something.
Pramod, what you are saying made me realise that there is *no* information / communication campaign against female infanticide in India (whether or not such campaigns work is another matter) – the government has supposedly banned ultrasound testing to find out the gender of the child. and that is all that has been done so far… scary!
sherriff, I dont know… maybe the age old belief in the roles of each sex – women as the weaker sex… I dont know really… but the reasons might differ across times and cultures…
snelvis, thanks so much for sharing your thoughts here… I actually did not have any impression about your preference for a child of any gender…. I was just wondering about why more girl babies are adopted in india as well – I think here in India prospective parents have the choice but I am not so sure…
I think you are right – more girl babies are abandoned and find their way to adoption agencies…
The reason there are so many more girls than boys available for adoption in India is because girls are considered a financial liability. There can actually be mourning within a family when a girl is born because a poor family realizes they will have to pay for their child’s dowry. Upon reaching the teen years families begin to transact an arranged marriage. The bride’s family is reponsible for paying the groom’s family a handsome some in order to marry her off. For families who are not well off, having a daughter, or more than one daughter, can be a terrible hardship and an unmarried daughter is a disgrace.
Worse still, if a child is born with very dark skin or a cleft lip or a facial birthmark or abnormality they know they will never be able to marry her off. It is these girls who are often abandonned at birth.
We have chosen to adopt a girl from India because we know such a child would never be adopted by higher class, more affluent Indian families. Her lot would be the streets where she would be forced to prostitute herself to stay alive. It is a cruel world.