generalspeaking

Disposable Girls

Clearly the attitude generally within Indian society in the index of the value of children and specifically girls, leaves much to be desired. It is a culture, much like that of China, where the value of a male child is considered to be hugely superior to that of a female child. Girls are disadvantaged from birth to marriageable age, to window-hood through all the abuse that occurs in a male-oriented and -dominated culture that can be imagined.

But the level of disinterest and indifference to the plight of women and girls dishonours the humanity of the country and its people. Since the dreadful rape and horrific beating of a 23-year-old student by a group of sex-obsessed, compassion-absent men who mutilated and caused her death, India is suddenly aware of all the dreadful instances of female abduction, rape and murder that afflict its society.

Girls of every age are targeted, particularly among the poor, and authorities have found it difficult to muster sufficient interest to make an effort to enact more powerful laws, and to attempt to turn the culture of expendable females around to reflect the values of most Indians of conscience.  Now that a five-year-old child was abducted, serially raped, tortured and left for dead, the nation is alert and furious.

And furious they should be, that in Delhi police simply shrugged off the family report that their child was missing. It was neighbours in the apartment building who heard a child moaning and weeping, and who broke into the locked room to discover her in dire straits. Two young men, Manoj Kumar 24, and Pradeep Kumar, 19, were arrested in the sordidly horrible affair.

The child, in critical condition when she was discovered, has undergone treatment, stabilizing her condition. She is likely to survive her dreadful ordeal, but the indescribable horrors she experienced will not leave her a happy and well-balanced personality. The trauma she suffered, both physical and psychological, can not but leave an altered psyche.

"Police and other officials that fail to do their jobs and instead engage in abusive behaviour should know that they will be punished", stated Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director of Human Rights Watch.

Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar had little option but to admit the obvious; local police had failed their most primary duty, the protection of the vulnerable. Instructions, he said -- given to police officers since the December gang rape ending in death -- to report all complaints of molestation and rape had led to a "phenomenal rise" in the number of cases registered.

It is past time for India, as one of the most populous countries of the world -- their most important source of future aspirations, their vast human resources; a people capable of brilliant scientific discovery, innovation and academic brilliance -- to value all of its people, equally.

Or risk losing the moral right to proudly call itself the largest democracy in the world.

Labels: Child Abuse, Controversy, Crime, Crisis Politics, Human Relations, Indian, Sexism

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, April 24, 2013