India’s wanted daughters

Since long, nationwide movements and government initiatives have been trying hard to impress upon the need to save and cherish the girl child. In a country where millions of daughters go missing with unfailing and alarming regularity, it is, indeed, heartening to note that parents seeking to adopt children prefer daughters over boys. According to the Child Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), 60 per cent of the couples adopted a girl. Maharashtra led the way with maximum number of girl child adoptions but more assuring is the similar enthusiasm in states like Haryana, otherwise notorious for skewed sex ratio.

Gender bias is so deeply entrenched in our social fabric that the fragmented government policies have to be dovetailed to bring about the desired shift in mindsets. A host of campaigns such as the high-profile Beti Bachao Beti Padaho have been repeatedly launched to arrest gender imbalance. But be it positive incentive measures such as these or giving more teeth to the anti-sex determination law, the results have never been fully satisfactory. A large majority continue to see daughters as both social and economic burden. 

The adoption data, however, signals a positive change emanating out of parents’ own volition and free will since adoption agencies provide parents-to-be the freedom to choose the gender of the child. Neither are the rules coercive nor biased in favour of any particular sex. Whatever may be the reasons; progressive desire to care for the perceived weaker sex or the impression that it is easier to bring up daughters, the intentions appear well-meaning. Reading a systemic shift in the adoption figures is certainly presumptuous. Devils’ advocates might sense ulterior motives in this preference; their underlying assumption that more girls are up for adoption is not corroborated by adoption agencies. The change, howsoever, small is significant. It may not offset societal prejudices against daughters but does stand in positive contrast to India’s obsessive ‘meta preference’ for male progeny. One can only hope that those rampantly indulging in sex-selective abortions will take a cue from the enlightened parents keen to give the fair sex more than a fair chance at better life.