Goa was once again shaken up with the distressing and disheartening news of a 10-day-old infant girl being abandoned in a box at Miramar, on December 26, last year.
While the State was in a festive mood celebrating the miraculous birth of Jesus to the Virgin Mary, a young mother, for circumstances unknown as yet, was forced to abandon her child born a week ago. Police have been able to trace the mother and an investigation is underway.
The incident shed light on the uncanny reality that the Goan society had not paid attention to for a while, that the majority of abandoned newborn babies in Goa are girls. For a small State, over the course of the last five years, Goa has witnessed 11 distressing instances of newborn babies being abandoned, with seven of these cases involving baby girls. Tragically, in three of these incidents, the infants met dire consequences due to the unsafe circumstances of their abandonment, including incidents involving dog bites and being left in perilous garbage sites.
Earlier this year, the National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-5 for the years 2019-21 made waves as Goa’s new dark reality had been exposed. The report stated that in the 0-6 year age group, the State’s figures for girls is 774 per thousand boys. The report unveiled the changing social reality of the population and set the record straight on the preference by parents and families in Goa for a male child. Social activists have long been raising the alarm on the trend but ignored citing the highly literate population in the State. But the cat is finally out of the bag.
For a long time now, just like the problem of addiction amongst teenagers and youth, Goan families have hushed up and shushed issues related to teenage pregnancies, problems in marriages and extra-marital affairs. Police cases against men for rape and cheating on the pretext of marriage and relationships going sour after a while are all in the public domain. In the age of social media, bonding and breaking bonds is just a click away, but to disband families and disown your child is a tough decision.
During the last week, the Goa State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (GSCPCR) issued a public advisory regarding ‘an alarming rise in unlawful adoption practices’. The Commission stated that it has identified a concerning trend within the State, especially in the South Goa district, where childless couples are involved in unauthorised adoption practices, posing significant risks to the well-being of vulnerable children.
Goa is also catching up with the rest of the world on in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and, subsequently, surrogacy is making its presence in the State. While, the government has entered the realm of IVF with good intentions to help childless parents to have a child of their own, surrogacy and its growing demand can alter the cause into a business module.
A Bollywood film had highlighted the issue of surrogacy way back in 2001, however, the realities of surrogate wombs as business for foreigners especially couples from the Western world who weren’t able to have children of their own and outsourced the pregnancy in India due to the low cost as compared to their own countries, were highlighted in documentaries and films later. Made In India and Google Baby are two of the many documentaries made on surrogacy, surrogate mothers and the IVF clinics in India that have turned it into a business. ‘Mala Aai Vahhaychy’, a Marathi film in 2011 and its Hindi remake, ‘Mimi’ in 2021, have exposed how poverty has pushed many families, especially women into the surrogacy business.
From forced pregnancies due to sexual assaults to teenage pregnancies and a child out of wedlock to poverty, the reasons for abandoning a newborn baby could be many. But, without doubt, abandoning a girl child is out of preference for a male child. As a society, Goa is beginning to fail to address the issue of preference for boys over girls. Teenage pregnancies should begin to concern society which indulges in name-calling, ridicule and shaming the family when such an incident happens.
The departments of Humanities and Social Sciences at Goa University should carry out a detailed study into the growing concerns of abandoning children. There is also a need to relook at the adoption procedures and the correlation between poverty, adoption, surrogacy and ‘unwanted pregnancies’.
