It's a Girl! Page #4

so that is the complete

dehumanization of females.

Dowry and infanticide and

feticide go hand in hand.

The minute dowry

enters a community

everyone becomes

greedy for dowry.

They think this is another way of

getting huge amounts of money.

And they demand huge

amounts in dowry.

And if they're entitled

to get dowry,

then they have to give

dowry as well.

So that becomes reason not to

have girls and daughters.

And so that doesn't matter

whether you are very poor,

or you're very rich in India.

That same logic applies.

If you're very rich,

you're getting foreign BMW's

and Mercedes in dowry,

but you have to give

that also in dowry.

So the logic for why feticide

and infanticide

are occurring today

are actually more...

It is really greed-based.

It is not based on

economic necessity.

It is greed-based,

it's every son is one way

of getting money in,

and every daughter less

is less outflow of money

from within a family.

Poor families who want to avoid

paying expensive dowries

frequently kill or abandon

their newborn daughters.

Wealthier families use

ultrasound machines

to learn the gender of

the child;

then, if the child is a girl,

commit female feticide,

aborting their baby because

of her gender.

Infanticide was a very horrible,

very terrible thing

to live with for the

rest of your life.

So the medical profession provided

an easy, kinder way of killing.

As if killing before birth

somehow made it kinder,

killing behind an operation

theatre table

makes it less gory,

less bloody.

Now infanticide to a

smaller level

has occurred throughout

history in India, China,

and the rest of Southeast Asia.

But when female feticide came,

it was so easily socially

acceptable.

In the worst of times in history,

in Medieval times,

not more than 1, 2, 3, 4

percent girl children

were killed at birth

as infanticide.

But now in modern societies

like India and China,

20, 25, 30 percent girls are

being killed before birth.

The pressure started

the moment they came to

know that I'm carrying twins.

The pressure started to get the

sex determination test done.

Mitu's husband and his mother

demanded Mitu get an illegal

sex determination test

because they feared the

twins would be girls.

When Mitu refused, they

locked her in her room.

The next three days I was not

given anything to eat or drink.

The only thing that

was demanded

was that they wanted a sex

determination test done

and abortion if both babies

are females.

My mother-in-law told me

this in front of my mother,

that for one lac rupees

($2000 USD)

we can get one baby

killed inside my womb,

so if they are girls

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