Where Do Rejected Little Girls Go...

Tamil Nadu’s cradle baby scheme was supposed to reduce female infanticide. Instead, it is legitimising the traditional discrimination against the girl child. PC VINOJ KUMAR reports

Photo: V. Chandru

THE IMAGE is emotionally evocative: a palna rocking outside an orphanage, while a desperate young mother tenderly places her child in the cradle, imbued with the hope that he or she will be adopted and get a better life than she can give. That’s the kind of social benefit Union Minister For Women and Child Development Renuka Choudhry also imagines she is engineering when she says that her dream project to combat female infanticide is to extend this very cradle scheme to every district in the country. Almost exactly a year ago, her ministry issued a press release stating that baby reception centres would be set up in each district. The reality, however, far from being evocative, is truly grotesque: abandoned by their parents, these children of a lesser god are then deserted by the state. Once handed over to adoption agencies, their last link with their roots is broken, since agencies are not required to keep records after adoption or fostering, or to provide regular updates to the government.

It is this Tamil Nadu model that Choudhary is trying to replicate. And, in the way of halfbaked do good ideas, it’s more damage to girl children. Beneath the veneer of true charity is a double social veniality. The project has legitimised the traditional discrimination against girl children by tacitly agreeing they are unwanted and can be abandoned. And the state government’s handling of the project has reduced the lives of these children to mere statistics in its record of success. The scheme was launched in Tamil Nadu in 1992 by the then Jayalalithaa government. So the very first children adopted under the scheme would now be 15-16 years old. For a project like as this, one could be forgiven forthinking that the government would be able to give the latest information on each child and how they have benefited. No one in the government knows what happened to these children after they were handed over to adoption agencies — because no one kept any records.

State social welfare minister Poongothai Aladi Aruna said the government only had information about the babies until the time they were delivered to the adoption agencies. “We don’t have records on where the babies have gone from there. We are in the process of collecting the information (regarding their whereabouts and welfare),” she told TEHELKA. What the officials can provide one with are the statistics: the number of babies they received in each year, the break-down of males and females, etc. Where they are, how they live, those are not in included in the information charts. According to information obtained by a NGO under the RTI Act, on June 1, 2007, the government had received a total of 2,589 children. Though the scheme was launched in 1992, it was after 2000 thatthe maximum arrivals occurred. About 2495 children were received during this period — 1545 surrendered and 950 abandoned babies. It has been estimated that the total number may have reached 3000 now. Where are these 3000 young girls today?

According to the Tamil Nadu government, they are just a series of statistics — filed and forgotten. TEHELKA’s evaluation of the scheme is that the government has merely played the role of a middleman in this sordid saga. And what about the poor parents? Acting under immense social pressure, some of these may have been mothers who abandoned their children rather than kill them, while others simply handed over their babies to the government in good faith. They did so because poverty and social conditioning forced them. Though they realised they would never see their children again, the opportunity to improve the child’s life was one they took. Gomathi, a 23 year old from Dharmapuri district (which had the highest response to the cradle baby scheme), says “ They told me once my child was given in adoption, I wouldn’t be able to contact her. I consoled myself that the State would monitor the welfare of my child.” She’s since been seized by guilt and weeps over her decision to surrender her baby to the government (see box) What Gomathi and other mothers certainly did not know was that their babies would be under government care for barely a couple of months before being handed to adoption agencies. Or that the link between the baby and the government would then be broken: it’s the agency that identifies adoptive parents, while the child becomes just another number in a file.

EVEN DEATHS reported are only in numbers and nobody knows if the biological parents are even informed. In fact, the infant mortality rate (IMR) among cradle babies is five times higher than the state average. “The IMR in Tamil Nadu is 31, but it is 162 for the cradle babies,” says P. Phavalam, project officer in the Madurai based Society for Integrated Rural Development, adding, “ As on 1 June 2007, out of the 2589 babies received under the scheme, 404 children had died.” The agency is part of the campaign against sex selective abortion, and is against the scheme. What these poor cradle children have turned out to be is an unending supply resourcefor adoption homes in the state. Social worker Mary Robert at Peace Society, Coimbatore, says that 75 percent of the nearly 140 babies they had given in adoption were cradle babies. “The babies come mostly from Dharmapuri,” she said, adding that all but 10 were females. Most other agencies are reticent about giving any facts. Sheela Jayanthi, director, Karna Prayag Trust, a Chennai based agency says that “whatever information you need on cradle babies, it has to come from the government,” a statement that is echoed by social worker KN George of Guild of Service who said that “we have been informed by the government not to disclose any information on this issue.” The veil of secrecy over the fate of the children only enhances the concern about their welfare. Where are they now? Are they in safe hands? It is not as if these concerns are misplaced or exaggerated. In November 2006, the news about the torture inflicted on a five-year-old cradle baby in Attur near Salem by her foster parents shocked the state. She had been adopted from a home in Hosur. A fact-finding report by a NGO noted that the child had burns and injuries at 300 places all over her body.

UNDER PRESSURE from child welfare activists, the Tamil Nadu government ordered a study on the status of the children placed in adoption. Its findings have not been made public. According to information available with TEHELKA, by January 1, 2007, 1472 cradle children were placed in in-country adoption and 115 in inter-country adoption. To anti-cradle scheme activists, it is a matter of concern that 115 girl children might be growing up in a culture alien to them, in violation of the guidelines of the 1989 UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child and 1993 The Hague Convention on Inter-country Adoption. “Can the government establish that no Indian parent was willing to adopt any of those 115 children? It won’t be able to,” charges A. Renganathan, director of Salem based NGO Village Reconstruction and Development Project.

The credibility of many of these agencies is highly suspect. In 2005, a panel including educationist SS Rajagopalan, senior advocate PV Bathavachalam and human rights activist Ossie Fernandes, conducted a four-month study on the functioning of the adoption agencies. The study was carried out after the arrest of the people running an adoption agency called Malaysian Social Service Society in Chennai for their alleged involvement in a case relating to the kidnapping and selling of about 350 children between 1991 and 2001. The study found there was “big competition” among adoption agencies to get babies from the government’s cradle baby scheme. It also found that the agencies received hefty donations (from prospective parents) for handing a child for adoption. The report noted: “We were told these donations are not accounted for and could range from Rs 50000 to Rs 2 lakh.” The report chided the government for handing cradle babies for adoption “with no follow-up or monitoring mechanism”. Fernan-des said that, “the government has no moral or legal right to give away the children to adoption agencies. The government should make public what happened to the children given in adoption under the cradle baby scheme.” The state government has not ventured any reply.

Photo: V. Chandru

IN FACT, the very proliferation of adoption agencies in Tamil Nadu is intricately linked to the cradle scheme. It may not be a coincidence that, between 2002 and 2006, their number doubled from 11 to 23. This was when the AIADMK government revived the scheme and extended it to all the districts. The then social welfare minister, B Valarmathi, accused the previous DMK government of having shown little interest in the project. Between 1992 and 1996, when the AIADMK was in power, 136 babies were received under the scheme, when it was functional in just two districts. During the subsequent five-year DMK rule only 10 children were received. But the present DMK government has been fully supportive of the scheme. The social welfare department’s policy note for 2007-2008 sermonises on the virtues of adoption: “Adoption undoubtedly offers an important avenue for the care and protection of orphaned, abandoned, destitute and neglected children in a family environment…” The district that accounts for the highest number of babies received under the scheme is Dharmapuri. It is socially and economically backward, with high incidence of female infanticide. The scheme was launched here in 2002. By 27 February 2008, the reception centre at the Dharmapuri government hospital had received its 1,044th baby. She belonged to a couple from a village near Dharmapuri, who handed over the child since they already had two girls. On February 21, three babies were deposited at the centre on a single day. Since the start of the year, the centre has been receiving a female child every third day on an average. M. Selvi, who runs the centre, says that only 41 of 1044 were males. “The male children usually have some disability. Few were HIV positive or born in an illegal relationship,” she says.

The message is clear. A male baby is dumped only if it has some disability, but a girl child is dumped because of its gender. Selvi says that she counsels those who bring their child, but is careful not to force them. “If we press too hard, they will take the baby and abandon it somewhere or just kill it,” she says. April 11, 2006, was an unforgettable day for this centre when three female babies were handed in. In two cases, the parents had two daughters already and did not want a third female child. The third child was found abandoned in a dustbin. Salem is another district where there is an endless supply of babies for the scheme. An official at the social welfare department said they have so far received 884 children. The register record is kept at the neo natal ward in the Mohan Kumaramangalam Medical College Hospital. Each entry registering the arrival of a child is a sad reflection of entrenched social mores against female children. “In many cases the parents don’t want to disclose their identity. So, they simply abandon their child,” says Dr. R. Selvaraj. According to hospital records, on January 21, a mother in the hospital’s labour ward abandoned a 2-day-old baby. On January 26, when the nation was celebrating its Republic Day, the parents of a 45-day-old girl baby surrendered her to the government: she had a cleft lip, two strikes against the poor girl.

On 3 February, a one-day-old girl child was found abandoned near a house at V Kooturodu; the next day, the parents of a three-day-old baby with a lump in the back handed over their child. On 18 February a male baby — for a change — was found near the Salem New Bus Stand in a garbage heap and February 22, a two-month-old girl child was found abandoned near the hospital’s nephrology ward. All of them became cradle children, forever unable to trace their roots — mere numbers in the emotional gulag that the scheme has become.

Despite its backing of the scheme, the state government has been meagre when it comes to allocating funding: according to the social welfare department’s policy notes for various financial years, it’s ranged berween Rs 12 lakh and Rs 6 lakh. Not only is the project run on a pittance, activists say there is no exclusive staff to man it. “The nurses in the cradle reception centre are on deputation from primary health centres. There are no qualified people to counsel those who come to surrender their babies. ” says M Shankar, convenor of the Tamil Nadu chapter of the Campaign Against Negligence of Girl Child. Naturally, there have been calls for the programme to be scrapped. “The scheme has encouraged the neglect of the girl child. It has denied her the right to live with her family,” says Shankar. He says it hasn’t eradicated female infanticide or female feticide either. “Dharmapuri’s sex ratio in the 0-6 age group is 877 compared to the state’s ratio of 939. Similarly the female infanticide rate is 73 against the state’s rate of 55,” he says.

Recently, activists came under the banner of the Social Movement Against Female Infant Mortality and held a conference in Dharmapuri to suggest ‘alternative schemes to save female babies.’ The speakers demanded that the government release a ‘white paper’. They also suggested the government could provide assistance to more girls in a family. For instance, the marriage assistance scheme provides Rs 15000 to one girl in a family. If this was extended to other girls in the family, it might effect a change of attitude. But the government is too busy patting itself on the back to make any serious evaluation.

Callous Care : The Dharampuri district government hospital

Salem district collector N. Mathivanan argues that cases of female infanticide have come down: every child added to the scheme is a life saved. Dharmapuri MP Dr R. Senthil of the PMK says the scheme is a necessity, but requires some streamlining. “It is essential for the government to monitor the child even after adoption. But it should not do anything stupid like asking the adop-tive parents to report to the taluk office or the police station with the child periodically. The issue has to be handled in a humane manner, so that people would continue to come forward to adopt the babies,” he says. Meanwhile, the Puducherry government has shelved the launching of the cradle baby scheme.

According to the original plan, Choudhary was to inaugurate the scheme, christened as the Annai Sonia Cradle Baby Scheme on December 9, the Congress president’s birthday. But the launch has been postponed now. R Smitha, managing director of the Puducherry Corporation for Development of Women, said the scheme has been shelved for lack of funds. “It will be launched during 2009-2010,” she said. She said they would follow the Tamil Nadu model and hand over the babies to two licensed adoption agencies in Puducherry. There’s little doubt that Choudhary is enthusiastic about extending the cheme to other parts of the country. However, with its flawed structure and implementation, this is an extension that might well be catastrophic: instead of thousands, there might well be millions of little girl children in a life possibly worse than death, chronicle of a death foretold.

WRITER'S EMAIL:
vinoj@tehelka.com