Jill Fordham has been to India to investigate the tragic life of unwanted girls in the world’s largest democracy

SHOCKING statistics reveal that, over the past 20 years, as many as 10 million girls in India have been killed by their parents – either before or immediately after birth. Further gruesome data on gender ratios reveals that, for every 927 girls under the age of six, there are 1,000 boys. This is the most imbalanced in the world and that disparity is getting greater.

In India, the birth of a boy is a cause for celebration. With a son comes status and wealth. Sadly, girls are associated with subservience and expense. That monetary drain is felt most by poor families. That is most families, with the prospect of dowry payments proving the final nail in the coffin of what might anyway have been a very short life for young girls

In an attempt to stop female foeticide and infanticide, Renuka Chowdhury, India’s minister for women and child development, has introduced a “cradles plan” for unwanted girls. She has said: “We will have cradles strategically placed all over the place, so that people who don’t want their babies can leave them there. They will be collected and put into homes. There are plenty of existing homes and we will be adding some more.”

Many of these homes are under the auspices of Mother Teresa of Calcutta (Kolkata) and her Missionaries of Charity. The aim of this organisation is to work for the “poorest of the poor”, with a primary task being to care for orphans and abandoned children.

Its first refuge to be opened was the Nirmala Shishu Bhavan children’s home in 1955. At the time of Mother Teresa’s death in 1997, the charity had 610 missions in 123 countries.

In India’s southernmost state of Kerala, the government has chosen August 26, the day in 1910 when Mother Teresa was born, to be celebrated as “Orphan Day”, thus enabling those orphans who have never known their own birthday, to have a reason to celebrate.

With a female literacy rate of 87.6 per cent, as compared to the Indian average of 54 per cent, it might be expected that gender equality within the state would compare more favourably with the West. Sadly, this is not so. Kerala is a society where patriarchal values are so deeply-rooted that gender-related prejudices clash with any educational attempts to improve human rights for women.

For those who will not be adopted or have the chance to return home, there is still the opportunity for rehabilitation in the form of marriage, with partners often found for them by the authorities. There is encouragement at government level for prospective grooms to consider girls regardless of caste and destitution, with all expenditure, including dress and jewellery, being met by the sponsors of institutions looking after the girls.

Much of the basic funding comes from the Keralan state government, which acknowledges the importance that qualitative education can play in challenging the poor status of women. There are opportunities for education up to college level, both in vocational and non-vocational training, with much emphasis on dance, drama and music. Despite being born into poverty, many of these youngsters are the possessors of great talent. But failing either education or marriage as the way to a better life, there are some who are destined to be in care forever.

When I was in India recently, I travelled 25 kilometres south of Trivandrum in Kerala to an area renowned for its miles of silver sands and luxurious resorts. My contact was Pushpa Johnson, a dear friend I have made on previous visits to the country. In 1984, she responded to a “calling” from God to work with Mother Teresa in Calcutta, where she remained until 1989, having been summoned by her family to return to Kerala in order to marry.

By day, Pushpa works for reasons of necessity within the fabricated confines of a luxurious holiday resort in order to feed her family. In the evenings, she is often to be found working for reasons of choice in a Mother Teresa Missionary building for sick and destitute women. Only five kilometres separates these places, but they are worlds apart.

I met Pushpa at the gates of the sombre stone convent which is home to 70 abandoned women. She led me to a dark dormitory where those who were able to shuffled slowly forward to collect their evening meal. Others simply sat and stared. The traumas they have suffered have deprived them of the power of speech. Most of these women have been abandoned by their families and rescued from the streets. The suffering they endure makes no allowances for age. Many harbour disease and there are also those afflicted with mental health disorders. The suicide rate among women in Kerala is reported to be twice the national average. This is surprising in a state reputed where healthcare and literacy are supposedly so advanced. But the clash of progress with deeply-rooted cultural barriers is where part of the problem lies.

I met Mariamma, who first came to the convent 30 years ago. Then she was a young girl from a very poor farming family. She came to help in the kitchen and has remained ever since.

A small group of women gathered around me, some standing with arms outstretched, as if begging – probably all the life they’ve ever known. Others reached out to touch me. Pushpa then requested with some urgency that I go to wash myself. I felt ashamedly uneasy. Was it the realisation that I was exposed to the risk of disease, or more disturbingly, that I myself am guilty of possessing an element of the cruel denial which determines the destiny of these abandoned women in the first place?

There was relief at least in knowing that could be released from this darkness in which I ended my day. But for those women I left behind, there is little chance of such liberation.

These orphanages are keen to raise awareness of their cause and welcome visitors: Nirmala Shisu Bhavan, Missionaries of Charity, University Road, Trivandrum – 695034, Kerala, Southern India, telephone: 0091 471 2307434; Sri Chitra Home for Destitute & Infirm, Pazhavangadi, Trivandrum – 695023, Kerala, Southern India, telephone 0091 471 2472185 www.srichitrahome.com info@srichitrahome.com.