On Sunday 10 Apr 2011 11:08:12 pm Shoba Narayan wrote: > Shoba Narayan > http://shobanarayan.com/ > Shoba I just read your impassioned piece that was missing from my inbox.
You wrote >Economists have long tried to explain the “missing women of Asia”, and you also write about this >In Usilampatti taluk in Tamil Nadu, women give the newborn milk laced with > erukkam paal (sap of Calotropis gigantea). The infant sucks the milk > greedily and dies within an hour. Penn-sisu-kolai (girl-baby murder) But please allow me to point out that technology and modernity have aggravated the situation IMHO. Oh I am sure girl children were murdered in the old days. but going through family histories it appears to me that murder of the girl child is less common than the scaremongering would suggest. I use the expression "scaremongering" because I believe girl child murder may be a bogey - a target that is being looked at while other causes are actually more significant. In the days before anyone held a census and in the days before ultrasound sex determination - the birth of a girl was more likely to be accepted with some regret. Perhaps the girl was "allowed to die" more easily after a childhood illness. But the advent of ultrasound scans and abortion clinics has surely aggravated the situation. Girl-child murders undoubtedly occur - but are probably not as common as selective abortion. I admit it is very difficult to get statistics of which particular cause leads to the maximum attrition in the number of girls, and logic cannot be a substitute for hard facts, but in a country where abortion does not amount to murder it surely offers a safe and "legal" alternative to murder after birth. Just my thoughts shiv
