EMPOWERING THE GIRL-CHILD

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Comment by Vinanti Sarkar Castellarin on November 2, 2011 at 11:54am

After spending 5-week in India last Spring (2010) on assignment for a wealthy NRI who invested $25 million dollars in ten years adopting 20 villages in Mewat district in Haryana State ... On returning to home base, it took me weeks to recouperate discovering the basic neglects: educating adults in Rural India - more than the children. This should be the first priority - as it is the uneducated adults that is the result of over population - from farmers, wives and family members to the Ministers and the government.

How could they not see the huge populations of young girl-children being married off at the age of 11, 12 and 13 by their own parents - mothers and grandmothers who condoned this inhuman act. When I agrued with them, they replied: "It was our lives - and my daughters will follow our cultural traditions demanded by our religion and village society ... Who are we to bring about the change ? One mother replied: "I went through this ordeal and so will all my daughters ..." There was no reasoning with illiteracy of the village mind.

This was a great cultural shock ! How could women - mothers and grandmothers - refuse to bring about change and playing out the rules of "society's games" in their daily lives in 2010 ... They had full control the lives of their girl-children whose only alternative in life is to accept their families "voices" of concern and entrer the booming marketplace becoming natural "baby breeding" machines across 60% of Rural India's poorest of the poor ... those living on $2 a day !!! It is important to find solutions to this tremenous problem which is spreading worldwide ...