National Girl Child Day
For centuries in India, daughters have been worshiped as forms of the goddess Laxmi, while ironically, it is sons who have been regarded as a guarantee for economic security- the source of wealth and prosperity for the family. They are considered the ideal inheritors of one’s accumulated capital. Sons are expected to take care of their aging parents, and carry forward family businesses. Meanwhile parents start preparing for their daughter's 'vidhai' from the moment she is born, concerned about paying dowries, and expecting to ship her off to another home where she will take care of someone else's family. Due to this, many families have not wanted to invest in the care and keeping of a girl child, leading to historically high rates of female infanticide in the Indian subcontinent. With the onset of modern technology, such as ultrasounds, there has also been an increase in female foeticide.
Gender screenings and sex-based abortions have led to unnatural selection through social factors as opposed to physical ones. Generations of these practices have led to an incredibly skewed sex ratio in the country- as per the 2011 census the figures stood at 943 women per 1000 men, reaching as low as 800 in some states. Although a law was put in place to prevent female infanticide in 1870, under British India, it didn’t do much to curtail the practice. An act prohibiting pre-natal sex determination was passed in 1994, which has criminalized this process and helped reduce it to some extent. This has led to the strange concept of reproductive tourism taking rise in India, as citizens travel to countries where sex screenings are not banned to determine what their future holds.
Similarly, the government has started a lot of schemes such as Beti Bachao Beti Padhao to increase focus and divert funding towards female education. In the modern world, more and more women are leaving the house to work, a result of families that have prioritized their education. The dependency that families feared from their daughters is no longer as great a cause for concern in many families in urban spaces. However, for many rural or poorer families, a girl child is still considered a curse, as funding her marriage becomes a great source for stress. Alternatively, funding her education is not even considered a viable option as they do not expect to see the return on their investment.
Due to this, National Girl Child Day and other recognitions of women are vital in nations like India, to celebrate the achievements of women and show the citizens that they are just as capable as a man, well worth the time and effort it takes to raise them. Especially when women are born into a society that already presents them with a series of obstacles to achieve success based solely on their gender, celebrating and empowering them from birth is vital to their development and that of the nation.
- Shreya, 24th January 2023.













