The Cradle Scheme
The Indian government has announced a plan dubbed the "cradle scheme", that it hopes will save the lives of baby girls. They will be setting up a series of orphanages across the country specifically to raise unwanted girls. At the moment, starting life as a female foetus in India is almost a guarantee that you won't live to see the light of day. Many districts in the country are now reporting only 800 girls born for every 1000 boys. Families with enough money to do so are having screening done to determine the gender of a foetus and them aborting the unwanted females. Those without the money for the in utero tests have to wait until the birth and then murder the unlucky little girl when she appears.
For those who haven’t noticed, Indians are making up a larger and larger number of Canada’s immigrant population. The gender imbalance being recorded now in India will be making itself felt here soon enough, if a massive public education effort is not undertaken to change the Indian perception of value assigned to gender, both in India and here in Canada.
Try telling a Canadian-born woman that her gender is only worth the garbage bin. Try telling Roberta Bondar and all the people who view her as a role model worth emulating that she really should have been consigned to the midden upon birth, or aborted and tossed down a well like the 50 female foetuses discovered August 10, 2006, in Patran. This town in the Patiala district of Punjab houses a private clinic that has a 10-metre well behind it. The well is not used as a source of water. It has, instead, been used as a mass grave for girls unwanted by families that believe the female gender is inferior.
As long as this attitude is unchallenged, there will be more wells used in this manner and more female babies being murdered. When will it begin here? The National Crime Records Bureau of India states that the recorded cases of female foeticide increased by half in 2004. For every case recorded, of course, there are others that go unrecorded, so the number of females dying violent deaths in India every year would be staggering if it were known. Placing so little value on female life goes hand-in-hand with the violence perpetrated against women in India. One woman is killed there every 75 minutes, most of them burned to death for not bringing her loving husband a large enough dowry.
Let me tie all this back in with the furor over the code of conduct issued by the town council in Herouxville, Quebec. They took the steps they did in order to forestall any attempts being made by newly arrived immigrants to recreate the conditions they left behind in their country of origin. The people indulging in these casual murders of females in India are not all back-country ignorants. Many of them come from the Punjab area, one of the wealthiest areas in the country. They are people we might be seeing here tomorrow. Do we want them free to spread this vicious misogyny across their new neighbourhoods in Canada? I want to repeat my support for the people who signed that document in Herouxville.
I am Canadian born and raised, and the mother of two daughters, as well. I come from a society that values all its citizens. If it falls short of the mark, there are steps that can be taken to redress the issue and bring public censure to bear on the miscreants who fail to uphold our society's values. I do not welcome the idea of any new male Canadian feeling free to judge me or mine as inferior to them. I would ask the parents of other Canadian girls; do you want your daughters to be viewed as inferior? Would you be okay with them being burned for not bringing enough coins to jingle in their husband's pockets?
If we do not stop our wishy-washy "accommodation" of minorities, we may someday need a cradle scheme of our own here in Canada. Let's write more codes of conduct. Let's all support Herouxville.
For those who haven’t noticed, Indians are making up a larger and larger number of Canada’s immigrant population. The gender imbalance being recorded now in India will be making itself felt here soon enough, if a massive public education effort is not undertaken to change the Indian perception of value assigned to gender, both in India and here in Canada.
Try telling a Canadian-born woman that her gender is only worth the garbage bin. Try telling Roberta Bondar and all the people who view her as a role model worth emulating that she really should have been consigned to the midden upon birth, or aborted and tossed down a well like the 50 female foetuses discovered August 10, 2006, in Patran. This town in the Patiala district of Punjab houses a private clinic that has a 10-metre well behind it. The well is not used as a source of water. It has, instead, been used as a mass grave for girls unwanted by families that believe the female gender is inferior.
As long as this attitude is unchallenged, there will be more wells used in this manner and more female babies being murdered. When will it begin here? The National Crime Records Bureau of India states that the recorded cases of female foeticide increased by half in 2004. For every case recorded, of course, there are others that go unrecorded, so the number of females dying violent deaths in India every year would be staggering if it were known. Placing so little value on female life goes hand-in-hand with the violence perpetrated against women in India. One woman is killed there every 75 minutes, most of them burned to death for not bringing her loving husband a large enough dowry.
Let me tie all this back in with the furor over the code of conduct issued by the town council in Herouxville, Quebec. They took the steps they did in order to forestall any attempts being made by newly arrived immigrants to recreate the conditions they left behind in their country of origin. The people indulging in these casual murders of females in India are not all back-country ignorants. Many of them come from the Punjab area, one of the wealthiest areas in the country. They are people we might be seeing here tomorrow. Do we want them free to spread this vicious misogyny across their new neighbourhoods in Canada? I want to repeat my support for the people who signed that document in Herouxville.
I am Canadian born and raised, and the mother of two daughters, as well. I come from a society that values all its citizens. If it falls short of the mark, there are steps that can be taken to redress the issue and bring public censure to bear on the miscreants who fail to uphold our society's values. I do not welcome the idea of any new male Canadian feeling free to judge me or mine as inferior to them. I would ask the parents of other Canadian girls; do you want your daughters to be viewed as inferior? Would you be okay with them being burned for not bringing enough coins to jingle in their husband's pockets?
If we do not stop our wishy-washy "accommodation" of minorities, we may someday need a cradle scheme of our own here in Canada. Let's write more codes of conduct. Let's all support Herouxville.
2 Comments:
Yes, it is a sad state of affairs, and it is played out in many third world nations, especially those in Asia and Africa. In those countries, society (males) have declared war on females -- and there should be a whole lot more being done by organizations such as the UN.
I don't know that supporting somewhere that is being blatantly xenophobic is the right way to educate people. Already, we see both India and China feeling the crunch of infanticide.
How to teach someone the value of a female? simply deprive them of them.
I once asked my father if he was sad that I was born first (being female). My father replied that he had never been happier. Then I asked if he was sad because my sister was born next. He again replied that he had never been happier. In fact, my mother had her tubes done after my sister. My brother was an oops.
I am lucky, my parents know the value of their daughters and their son. Unfortunately, others aren't so lucky.
Amal
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