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Baby girls in india

(34 Posts)
Sallywally1 Thu 18-Nov-21 17:55:32

Just read an article about a five day old baby girl in India left to die in a drain. Luckily she was found and is now in hospital and doing well. I had my lovely nearly three year old granddaughter this afternoon, she is the apple of her parents eye and simply delightful. I look at her and cannot understand the attitude to girls some countries still have.

They must be so desperate and so poor they cannot see any other way, but to me it is incomprehensible.

The article made me want to cry it is so sad.

Blossoming Thu 18-Nov-21 17:58:17

It is desperately sad, what an awful state of affairs.

DillytheGardener Thu 18-Nov-21 18:02:32

Daughters cost a small fortune for poor families because of the dowry system I believe, whereas the sons bring in income when they are older. It’s awful I agreed.

Mattsmum2 Thu 18-Nov-21 18:25:04

This is sad and wrong on so many levels and in medieval Britain there were probably similar things going on. I hope one day this world will see things differently but politics, religion and cultures in some countries will suppress those that are vulnerable from having a voice.

Jackiest Thu 18-Nov-21 18:30:41

The dowry system has been illegal in India since 1961 but like the cast system which is also illegal the law is ignored.

Discrimination causes so much pain and suffering in the world I speak out against it no matter what form it takes or what direction it is in.

Sallywally1 Thu 18-Nov-21 19:30:01

There are orphanages in India to take an ‘unwanted’ girl to. ?

I think it was because she was abandoned in a drain at five days old which affected me so much. I have a brand new two week old grandson, you forget how helpless they are at this stage. That darling baby girl in India was betrayed in the worst possible way by the very people who should have cherished her.

Aveline Thu 18-Nov-21 19:36:47

I was hearing that in Cape Town there's a church which has a large drawer that opens in both directions. Unwanted babies can be placed there anonymously and retrieved from the other side by carers. I just hope that the church there looks after children better than the ones we keep hearing about over here. Sad business all round .

Hithere Thu 18-Nov-21 20:52:00

Indian culture, as beautiful and rich as it is, has very big issues.

Iam64 Thu 18-Nov-21 21:17:04

Without seeking to diminish the tragedy of this baby girl in India, I’m horrified by the increase in child abuse in this country.
Recently, I’ve read of three toddlers and two six year olds subjected to torture, found to have been emotionally and physically abused then finally murdered by parents. 3 year old forced to stand against a wall for hours, not fed, beaten. I could go on but it’s so wicked and distressing,
We need to look to treatment of children in this wealthy country

Sallywally1 Thu 18-Nov-21 21:55:00

I agree Iam64, it is heartbreaking. Little Arthur who was abused and tortured and poisoned with salt. The UK has a terrible litany of child abuse cases.

I cry for them all

Lincslass Thu 18-Nov-21 22:01:51

Absolutely heartbreaking, both here, in India, and elsewhere. Children should be nurtured, loved, they are everyone’s future.

V3ra Thu 18-Nov-21 22:26:59

Sallywally1 when we had our third baby, and our second son, there was an Indian couple on the ward who had just had their third daughter. The baby's father came every visiting time and sat with his head in his hands. His wife was miserable.
He admired my baby son and I complimented him on their baby. "No good," he said, "Is girl is no good."
This was in 1984 in Coventry.

Iam64 as part of my recent safeguarding training course we had to watch the YouTube video of "The Daniel Pelka story: Ordinary World." Also in Coventry.
It's heartbreaking stuff and there is seemingly no end to these tragic cases.

Iam64 Fri 19-Nov-21 08:39:30

V3ra in 1979 I attended a 3 day safeguarding course as part of my training. It was excellent, not least as it was multi agency. The cid officer standing next to me during a short video aimed to help identify brain injuries fainted. It was my introduction into the impact on staff who work closely with child abuse. It’s always distressing and staff somehow learn to manage their own feelings in the face of horrors. I’ve not seen any research into the long term impact. Off to google

Aveline Fri 19-Nov-21 09:20:50

When I was in Bangladesh the lady appointed as my 'minder' told me that her mother had taken in her maid's baby daughter as the maid's husband had told her not to come home from hospital with another girl. sad
They were desperately poor though. The husband slept under his bicycle rickshaw at night.
Re child cruelty here. Absolutely no excuse whatsoever. Severest penalties for perpetrators.angry

Barmeyoldbat Fri 19-Nov-21 09:44:36

Awful, yet a heart warming story, my Muslim Cambodian friend, extremely poor, when his wife was expecting their 2nd just wanted a girl and His daughter is now 4 and the apple of his eye. He told me he wants education for his daughter and sees it as way out of poverty and it is. But not all countries are the same. There is certainly no excuse here in this country for child abuse and neglect, I just hope the abusers of these children get a really stiff sentence and are given hell in jail.

Baggs Fri 19-Nov-21 09:54:38

My parents had friends who adopted seven children that they found abandoned or orphaned from around the world. The first was a baby girl they found on a rubbish heap in India.

This would have been in the fifties mainly. It's probably more complicated now.

Purplepixie Fri 19-Nov-21 09:59:42

Heartbreaking. They must be so desperate as others have said, who could possible do this. India has a culture that still doesn’t respect women and then there is the wedding dowry. It’s bad news there having a baby girl - so sad.

Dee1012 Fri 19-Nov-21 10:05:16

I will never, ever forget watching The Dying Rooms documentary some years ago - about orphanages in China. I was left heartbroken and angry.....

Shelflife Fri 19-Nov-21 10:59:51

Dee1012, I remember only too well watching The Dying Rooms. It had still does have a profound effect on me. Like you I will never forget it.

Shelflife Fri 19-Nov-21 11:00:29

and still!

Boogaloo Mon 22-Nov-21 19:28:36

When my husband was in university in the early 70's his roommate took a trip to India. When he returned he told my husband how he kept hearing a baby crying so he went to investigate and found a baby girl who had been left on some rocks to die.

Ali08 Tue 23-Nov-21 15:34:53

Sallywally1

Just read an article about a five day old baby girl in India left to die in a drain. Luckily she was found and is now in hospital and doing well. I had my lovely nearly three year old granddaughter this afternoon, she is the apple of her parents eye and simply delightful. I look at her and cannot understand the attitude to girls some countries still have.

They must be so desperate and so poor they cannot see any other way, but to me it is incomprehensible.

The article made me want to cry it is so sad.

But, they did not kill her so someone wanted her found and saved!!!
Think of the many others that have been murdered and their bodies left somewhere where they possibly won't be found at all, or for so long a time!!

I agree, ALL lives are to be cherished and nurtured, not just the ones their 'gods' deem to be important!
One of these days they'll find themselves with only men to marry off to men, and I wonder what they'll do then?

Katie59 Tue 23-Nov-21 16:41:59

As has been said the laws are ignored, and the cast system I highly discriminatory, particularly towards women. Nowhere else in the world have I seen women laboring on building sites or women camped alongside the highway repairing the road with their children running in the gutter.

And that’s in Delhi!

Aveline Tue 23-Nov-21 16:46:47

This is why there are so many 'incels' in countries where female babies are discarded or worse. Too many young men swimming in testosterone are a recipe for disaster.

grandtanteJE65 Wed 24-Nov-21 11:51:50

Yes, it is sad, but why assume her parents or parent abandoned her without a second thought?

Do you really not have sufficient imagination to think that she might have been abandoned due to any amount of circumstances that drove her mother or both parents to this dreadful step.

Presumably, she had desperately poor parents who already have more children than they can feed.

Or she may be the outcome of rape or incest of an unmarried girl,

Or have a mother suffering from severe post-natal depression.

I am not saying it is right to abandon children of either sex, but I do not believe anyone does so unless absolutely forced to do so.

And is it morally worse than aborting a child because you don't feel ready to be a mother, or know you cannot support the child and have been left in the lurch by the man responsible?

I trust you don't condemm the poor women in our society who feel forced to choose abortion?