By Matters India Reporter
Mumbai: A lay Catholic theologian urged Indian church to create awareness on girls, women’s rights.
Virginia Saldanha, a theologian based in Mumbai was reacting to the latest result of the annual economic survey presented by the Federal Ministry of Finance of Government of India which said that the country has 21 million unwanted girls and 63 million “never born” as Indian parents “prefer for a male child.”
Despite the banned tests for determining the sex of the unborn child are still prevalent. Every year two million girls “disappear” through abortion, diseases, and malnutrition.
“Right now in every way the woman is viewed as second class and therefore devalued. If we want to reverse the trend of preference for the male child and aborting, neglecting or abandoning the girl child we need to do a lot of work on changing our attitudes towards girls/women. We have to examine the cultural and traditional practices that devalue and do violence to the girl child; to demolish all the myths surrounding the girl child which spell doom for the female fetus/infant/child; to train our girls to grow up to be confident and self-reliant,” said Saldanha, former secretary at Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences office for Women’s desk.
She is secretary of the Indian Christian Women’s Movement and the Indian Women Theologians Forum. She also has represented laity, family and women’s issues in organizations of Asian and Indian bishops.
“Why is a boy child preferred to a girl child?” she asked. The reasons given were – the boy looks after the parents in their old age, the boy carries on the family name, boys do their parents proud by their success and achievements, girls need a dowry. Though many of the reasons might have been true in the past, today reality has proved differently but the discrimination continues, Saldanha said.
“We have many instances when girls return home to care for their parents or do a breathless relay between their marital home and their natal home to nurse sick parents. Girls are doing as well and sometimes better than boys are, in their careers. Yet the belief that boys are more valuable than girls continues,” she said.
Sadly even though there are structures in the Church to deal with discrimination, nothing much is being done to actually change attitudes. The schools are the best place for awareness rising. Through schools, church can reach all sections of society, but sadly schools conduct token programmes. There is no sustained effort that goes all the way to changing attitudes. “We have marriage and baptismal preparation programmes, where awareness can be raised with young parents,” she opined.
“Our attitudes still continue to reinforce stereotypes of woman as mother, care-giver and home-maker. Women are discouraged from pursuing a career because their primary role is seen as mother, wife and homemaker. With a job comes autonomy, confidence and assertiveness that will help girls shine in every way and will increase her worth. When parents are made to realise that girls are as valuable as a boy they will welcome a girl child. The Church can help raise the value of the girl child by giving women leadership roles in the governance of the Church,” she said.