Prosperity is not helping India’s girl children

Just released numbers from India’s census shows a disturbing trend–even in rich, educated areas, parents are opting to carry out sex selective abortions in order to have a son.

According to columnist Kalpana Sharma at The Guardian,

“Interestingly, the most skewed sex ratios are from states with the highest economic growth rate. So wherever there is wealth, to be shared by members of the family, girls are not wanted. The “family”, meaning the men, must divide the wealth among themselves. Girls marry other men, and their share of the family wealth would go to these other men.

Girls also have to be loaded with goodies when they marry these other men. Hence they are an additional expense. Boys, on the other hand, bring home the goodies when they marry – plus an additional hand to do all the chores around the house.”

So why is wealth, education and access to resources and modern lifestyle not translating into better situation for women and baby girls?

The problem lies in deeply rooted culture of valuing the male and disregarding females as equal and as important. No matter how much wealth you have or how educated you are, unless you change your attitude, nothing changes. We have to look beyond wealth and education as the sole catalysts for change, let us focus on cultural and social introspection and examination too.

It is politically incorrect to pass judgments on a culture,  we may sound insensitive and hurtful but the numbers don’t lie and there is something wrong in a culture and in a society that values boys so much that every year thousands of baby girls are killed before they are born.