I feel utter sadness to write this post. South Asian people including Indians are never fan of their baby daughters. Even many couples in India first carry out a test on the gender of the unborn child and if the child is female then kill it in the womb. This is a very common practice in India and it has been going on for quite sometime. Thus, gradually, India is going to face a serious crisis of female population sooner than later. Well, some parts of India are already facing this problem and one such place is the western Indian state of Gujarat.
According to census figure there are there are 828 females for every 1 000 males in the state while unofficial sources even put the figure to as low as 700 females against 1000 males. So, naturally, there is a serious shortage of brides for Gujarati men and some rich men are paying some poor men to give them their wife on a monthly rental basis. I found one story in a report (listed in the related articles below) that $175 is given as the rent of a poor man's wife by a rich man.
Selling girls for marriage from tribal families is becoming a booming business in Gujarat and many brokers are now earning handsome amount of money from it. Unfortunately, the girl and her family hardly get a fair deal.
Fortunately, this is limited to a very small scale in some parts of Gujarat but it is flourishing and there is no sign of stopping. The police is often helpless as people do not come forward to file complain against it. However, I would strongly urge the state government of Gujarat and central government of India, the media, NGOs to follow up this matter very seriously. Since, the problem is yet to become a grand one; if it tackled now then it will not spread. Otherwise, renting wife can indeed become a very big business for India in the coming days- even a bigger business than outsourcing.
My sympathy, compassion and prayer are for the poor women who are suffering this kind of ordeal.
Related Articles
» Nepal: Growing Business of Sex Selection from SouthAsiaBiz
Killing female fetuses is indeed a big business in India. In fact, nearly 10 million female fetuses have been destroyed in India in the last two decade. Until now, this was not an important issue in Nepal. However, things... [Read More]
Tracked on: October 29, 2007 2:54 PM | Permalink to Trackback