Peace & Brotherhood

A Good Citizen

Feminism

Helpful

Girls Are The Spirit Of Our Nation,Save Them And Stop Their Exploitation.

• Dowry: In India, the age-old dowry system, is an instigator to the unwanted female children. When a girl child is born, her parents start calculating the expense of her wedding and the money that will be given to the groom's family in cash or as a gift. Because of this, most of the parents do not want to see this day of tragedy when their savings of whole life will be given to the boy's family and even then there is no guarantee of their daughter's well-being at her in-laws.
• Male child living with parents: People in India need male children because male child is a better investment for them. He is going to live with them and will support them as long as they live. Unlike a girl child who once married off with huge dowry starts living with her new family, a male child stays with his parents and his wife brings dowry. Why would they choose something less beneficial to them economically?
• Far beyond equality: As a result of prevalent sexism in Indian society, girl children and women have been considered less powerful and successful. They have to fight hard to prove their mettle in a society where everything is by default served for men. Even though women have been very successful in every field but gender pay gap is yet another example of unconscious discrimination against women where they are always rated lower against men.

Solution

• Cancellation of doctor's licence who practices in determining the sex of an unborn child and thus performing the abortion. His/her licence should be permanently terminated so that he/she should know the ill effects of misusing the power of a health specialist whom people confide in for their treatments.
• Penalties for the parents who want to know the sex of their unborn child and thus aborting the female foetus. They should be tried in court for the same crime as killing a child when they abort an unborn child.
• Educating and spreading awareness amongst the parents to be about the ill effects of aborting female children and embracing the girl children same as their male counterparts.

• Go Paperless: As we all know that 93% of the paper comes from trees. So don't print anything on the paper unless you need it badly and if you do, consider printing on both sides of the paper. Also, you can switch to paperless option if you have it available at your financial institution. You can save so much of paper which goes wasted by companies in sending notices, updates and statements to their clients.  Use recyclable shopping bags instead of paper bags and plastic bags. Although paper bags are also recyclable and are not harmful like plastic bags, they are made out of trees and more demand of paper bags means more trees will be cut off. On the other hand, re-usable bags are made of cloth and can be used again after a wash.

To print Sunday edition of New York Times, it requires 75,000 trees!

•  Go Biking: If possible, cycle/bike to work. Carpooling is an another option we can choose to save on fuel/gas. Using public transport is also a convenient way in which we can contribute not to pollute the environment by using our own cars/scooters/motorcycles. More people can commute together in public transport system which not only reduces the air pollution, but also help reducing the noise pollution due to less vehicles on the road.

• Poverty: More than half of the girls in the poorest families of the developing world are married as children. Marriage is seen as their security option when the poverty is acute. The parents also believe that marrying off their daughter early will also leave them one less person to feed in the family. Moreover, if the girl is very young and uneducated, they end up paying less dowry for her. 
• Genetic: Most of the early marriages happen in some parts of the world because they have been happening in their families from generations. It is a part of their culture and tradition. In some communities, a girl is considered a woman as soon as she has her first periods. She is then forced into another phase of womanhood by becoming someone's wife and then mother. In some cultures, a young girl is married presuming she is a virgin which is a big credit for her family's honour, robbing of her own dignity and honour.
• Inequality: Gender inequality is another major reason for child marriages. Most of the families involved in child marriages prefer boy child to their girl child. They prefer to spend money and resources on the upbringing of their boys while girls are considered just an economic burden. They try to get rid of them by marrying them off early so that this economic burden can be further shifted to her husband. Most of the time, girls don't have a say in this because she is not the decision maker in the family. It is the father, the male member, who takes all the decisions.
• Insecurity: Another reason for child marriage is girl's insecurity. In order to prevent girls from being physically and sexually harassed or assaulted in the vulnerable neighbourhood, parents tend to marry them off as soon as possible so that they can secure their married life irrespective of their age. They tend to think that it is in her best interest. Sometimes, a girl also thinks that marriage is the only way to escape the challenges of her current life and she agrees to get married at a young age.
• Inadequate laws: It is not true that there are no laws against child marriages. The laws are just not enforced properly. In India, the laws against child marriages have been placed since 1929 but India has the most number of child brides in the world due to its population. About 47% of the girls in India are married before their 18th birthday.

• Poverty: Child marriage means end of the childhood, forcing the child into a matured life which is full of violence, deprived of education and her economic growth. The girl cannot contribute towards her own and her family's economic development. She is more likely to be poor and remains poverty stricken all her life.
• Poor health: Child brides face high risk of injury or death. The girls who give birth before the age of 15 are 5 times more likely to die in their childbirth than the girls in their 20s. Also, their children are less likely to live beyond their 1st birthday. Child brides also face more risk of contracting HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases because their husbands are generally old and they have more sexual experience. Girls between the age of 15 to 19 are 2 to 6 times more likely to contract HIV/AIDS than boys of the same age in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Domestic Violence: Child brides are more likely to experience domestic violence than their peers who marry later. It has been reported that child brides are slapped, threatened, and beaten by their husbands. They are more likely to describe their first sexual experience as forced. They are also more likely to show the symptoms of sexual abuse and posttraumatic stress such as feelings of depression and hopelessness.

WHO CAN DO WHAT?