Save Girl Child

By-Khushbu Agrawal Nikita Sachdeva

Facts about India:

Census office for 2011 shows that the child sex ratio (0-6 years) has declined to 914 girls for every 1,000 boys as compared to 927 in 2001.

J&K's child sex ratio falling precipitously to 859, making it the third worst state after Haryana and Punjab. In 2008, J&K had a better child sex ratio than the Indian average. With the exception of Himachal Pradesh, no state in the north now has a child sex ratio above 900. There are now 48 fewer girls per 1,000 boys than there were in 1981. J&K, Maharashtra and Haryana have had the worst 30-year decline in child sex ratios.

Facts about India:

Punjab is the most improved state with a 48-point increase over 2001, while Haryana has 11 more girls per 1,000 boys than it did in 2001.

In the widening gender gap in India the female literacy rate 24.88 per cent- is barely half that of males - 46.74 per cent. And the gap continues to widen. In the 6-14 age group, nearly 84 per cent of boys are enrolled in schools, as against 54 per cent in the case of girls.
Between Jan 1st 2008 and Dec 31st 2011, a staggering 1814 women got raped in Delhi that's 38 women per month 2012

Facts about India:

The nation of mothers still follows a culture where people idolizes son and mourns daughters. UN figures out that about 750,000 girls are aborted every year in India. Abortion rates are increasing in almost 80% of the India states, mainly Punjab and Haryana.
Every 26 minutes a woman is molested. Every 34 minutes a rape takes place. Every 42 minutes a sexual harassment incident occurs. Every 43 minutes a woman is kidnapped. And every 93 minutes a woman is burnt to death over dowry.

 In 2011 rape cases were increased by 30%, Procuration of minor girls recorded an increase of 27%. In 2011, Buying of girls for Prostitution showed a decline of 65%, and selling of girls for Prostitution reported decline of 13% compared to 2010. Infanticide showed a decline of 37 points during this period An increase of 122.2% has been observed in cases of importation of girls during 2010-11, and 56% of these cases reported in 2011 are from Madhya Pradesh.

 The highest increase in the incidence of juvenile crimes was observed under the heads 'Counterfeiting' (81.8%),'Dowry deaths' (63.2%) and 'Kidnapping & abduction of women & girls'(53.5%).

ISSUES
Child marriage
A report by the UNICEF revealed that 82 percent of girls in Rajasthan are married before they are 18, 15 percent of girls in rural areas across the country are married before 13 and a major 52 percent of girls have their first pregnancy between 15 and 19. Rajasthan that tops the list with the average age of a girl at marriage being 16.6 years, closely followed by Bihar (17.2 years) and Madhya Pradesh (17 years). Despite the existence of legislation banning child marriage since 1929, the practice continues to be a social reality in the present India. Consequences: Childs education is sacrificed Girls become more vulnerable to domestic violence Early pregnancies weaken the mother Babies born to girls under 17 are 60 percent more likely to die in their first year of life

ISSUES
Dowry System Dowry is a curse for the Indian society as utter disrespect for women is clearly showcased in this issue. Women of the country are tortured and burnt alive for meeting the requirements of dowry. Researches have dictated that about 30, 5000 women in India are stabbed to death over the dowry issue. The statistics are more in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh but sadly the largest IT sector of the country Bangalore has also recorded an alarming rise. In 2010, 8391 dowry death cases were reported across India, meaning a bride was burned every 90 minutes, according to statistics recently released by the National Crime Records Bureau. A decade earlier this number was 6995, but climbed to 8093 dowry deaths in 2007.

ISSUES
Sexual harassment
There are various forms of sexual harassment including the hostile work environment, and violation of human rights. This is the most explicit kind of behaviour in the modern era where many consent the proposal in order to quench their need of money and status.
According to the latest Indian National Crime Record Bureau Crime Report for 2008 a total of 12,214 sexual harassment cases were reported in the country during the year showing an increase of 11.5 per cent as compared to the previous year (10,950).

The 5-year trend analysis showed an increase of 14.7 per cent over the average of 2003 2007.

Crime against Children- Head Wise% Distribution 2011

REMEDIES
In India today a lot of attention is given to the plight of girl children and the position of women in Indian society. At the heart of this problem is the practice of female foeticide, the unnaturally low ratio of girls to boys, and the 54% literacy level for women in India as a whole. There has to be much greater focus on female literacy because the adverse sex ratio that we have today has to be challenged fundamentally in the minds of our people. We need to strengthen legislative enforcement, basic health care and nutrition and reorient national literacy and school education programmes to give greater focus to women and the girl child Effective implementation of the Dowry Prohibition Act and other relevant laws

REMEDIES
Grant of equal property rights to girls A department for women and a commission for women must be established at central and state levels Extensive support should be available to NGOs and such organizations Parents should also have an open mindset towards enrolling their children in co-education schools to ensure healthy exposure. Sex education should be imparted at an appropriate age by the parents or guardians themselves.

PROJECT NANHI KALI: EMPOWERING THE GIRL CHILD IN INDIA

The goal of Project Nanhi Kali is to educate 1,00,000 by 2013, Project Nanhi Kali has collaborated with New York based advertising agency StrawberryFrog to completely reinvent its marketing strategy in order to harness the potential of the digital media and online space

Project Nanhi Kali has witnessed a significant increase in both enrolment of girls and attendance of girls in schools. Furthermore, the dropout rate has been curtailed to 10% in the project area in comparison to the national average of 30% and learning level have increased by 20 percentage points.
Most importantly in a predominantly male favored country, Project Nanhi Kali is creating a shift in culture in favor of educating the girl child.

Case:
In eastern India, as in Bengal, salt is put into the babys mouth and its closed for a minute. In Bengal triplet girl babies that were born healthy were declared dead within a day. Autopsy reports showed that the family had killed them with salt in the mouth. In another, a father threw his new born off a train within 12 hours of her birth.

Facts & Figures: Global scenario

Around the world, at least 1 in 3 women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime. As many as 324,000 women each year experience intimate partner violence during their pregnancy. Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women between the ages of 15 and 44 in the United States.

Approximately one in five female high school students reports being physically and/or sexually abused by a dating partner.

Global scenario
In the United States, one-third of women murdered each year are killed by intimate partners. In South Africa, a woman is killed every 6 hours by an intimate partner. In India, 22 women were killed each day in dowryrelated murders in 2007.

In Guatemala, two women are murdered, on average, each day.

Global scenario
Trafficking Women and girls comprise 80 percent of the estimated 800,000 people trafficked annually, with the majority (79 percent) trafficked for sexual exploitation.

In Sao Paulo, Brazil, a woman is assaulted every 15 seconds.

In Ecuador, adolescent girls reporting sexual violence in school identified teachers as the perpetrator in 37 percent of cases.

Nike contribution:
The Nike Foundation is working with DFID, Population Services International and the Government of Rwanda to create a program called 12+ for 12-year-old girls in Rwanda. 12+ combines safe spaces, mentorship, health and financial literacy training, and fun health adventures to delay girls sexual activity and increase contraceptive use once its needed. Accelerating secondary school completion and transitions to good jobs.

 Celebritys contribution: Social sites: Facebook

P&G
Shiksha aims to build the educational future of India Brick by Brick by addressing the need for better educational infrastructure and building the tangible asset of schools.

Surf excels:

FUNBOOK:

A girl child is God's gift, nurture her like a flower