Girl child still unwanted in Salem, Namakkal in TN

Girl child still unwanted in Salem, Namakkal in TN
K. SUBRAMANIAN

SALEM, AUG 16: Female infanticide continues to haunt Salem and Namakkal districts. Baby girls here are starved to death or strangulated. Three deaths have been reported in the last 30 days in Salem city, Jalakandapuram and Edapady.

Parents here are reported to have killed nearly 3,000 babies themselves or through professional killers. But fearing the police and legal complications, choking the baby by giving it paddy grains with milk or administering erukkam pall (latex clatropis) are now avoided. Foeticide -- termination of pregnancy -- is preferred. Others simply dump their newborn in dustbins.

Female infanticide has been mostly noticed in the families of landless labourers and small farmers. A community in Rasipuram in Namakkal district immediately kills baby girls born on Amavasai (new moon day). Some families in Salem kill the babies within 10 days of birth as it's a ``liability'' for them. Parents here have to pay huge amounts as dowry.

A. Ranganathan, director of the Village Reconstruction Development Project (VRDP), a leading NGO in Salem working to prevent female infanticide, estimates that nearly 10 per cent of the rural families have killed a baby girl. He says most of the deaths are reported from Omalur, Edapady, Sankagiri and Rasipuram taluks. While the male to female ratio of children (below four years) is 1000:972 in the state, it is only 1000:842 in the erstwhile combined Salem district.

Ranganathan says the VRDP has taken up special projects to create awareness against female infanticide in Omalur, Salem and Kadayampatti blocks. Its workers provide pre-natal and post-natal care for women in the villages. In Kadayampatti block in Salem district, it has managed to bring down the percentage of families committing female infanticide from 10 to four per cent.

Social Welfare Minister S.P. Sargunapandian, who inaugurated a seminar on prevention of female infanticide here last Tuesday, has warned that the crime would be treated as murder. The Centre has allotted Rs 5 lakh to spread awareness in Salem district, thanks to the efforts of District Collector Md Nasimuddin.

A study by the Tamil Nadu Area Health Care Project of DANIDA says that Salem and Dharmapuri districts have the highest infant mortality rates (81 and 74 per 1000) while the State's average is 43 per 1000. The female infant mortality rate is the highest in Salem district (41 per 1000) followed by Theni (16 per 1000) and Dharmapuri (29 per 1000). The rate of baby girls stillborn is 30 per 1000 cases in Salem.

The DMK government, which did not want to give credit to the `Cradle Baby Scheme', launched by the AIADMK government, is now trying to curb the social evil.