They didn't breathe!

 Let me tell you a story that you all have heard many times before. The characters of our story are : a pregnant mother, a father and a nurse. All these characters lived in a village in a part of the country of India. One fine afternoon, the mother's water broke and she was taken to the hospital. She was inside the labour room and the father was eagerly waiting outside for his son. A while later, a new character has entered the story with a cry. The nurse handed the new character to the father and mentioned that it was a girl. The father's dreams of having a heir to the family rice business all came crashing down in a moment. Besides, providing gold and dowry and getting her married to a man are all too expensive. They had no money to conduct a gender recognition test. Had they known, they'd have eliminated it before it was born. But now, it would be murder. There was no point in serving a life sentence over a useless piece of flesh and blood. An utter dilemma. This is when our nurse comes in again but this time, instead of the flesh and blood, she has a paper form in her hand and asks the father for the child's name and details. That is when it occurred to the dear father that if they don't issue a birth certificate, there won't be proof of the child being born. How can someone murder a person who wasn't born? He took the baby outside, and carried out his notion. All was said and done. His wife didn’t question him.The villagers didn’t question him. All he did was get rid of a burden, right.

In another country called China things were a little different. In the year 1979, the Chinese government passed a policy called the One Child Policy. While this was actually aimed at keeping the population within sustainable limits, the results was not what they expected. While this was not the initial causative of female infanticide in China, the action peaked at the time and a huge percentage the female children were killed. The government passed many laws to keep this under control but eventually had to abolish the law on October 29th 2015. These two aren't the only countries that had this practice. They are just the most prominent.

But why do we not hear about female infanticide now? Well, it has become a punishable offence now but that alone isn't the reason. In 1991, the Girl Child Protection Scheme was launched via which the govt. provided the money needed for her upbringing and at the age of 20, she would receive a bulk amount which can either be used for higher education or as dowry. In 1992, the Indian govt. started the Baby Cradle Scheme which allowed families to anonymously give up the children for adoption so that they'd rather not be killed. But it was a huge failure and had to be abandoned but it was reinstated in the following year. Apart from those, dowry was banned, issuing birth certificates and relating document came under strict protocols and also free and compulsory education was provided to every child. Thanks to those, girls still breathe.

- Fathima Naushad