Every year hundreds of girl children are abandoned in every corner of the Country where a women deity is worshiped. Of the 11 million abandoned babies in India, 90 percent are girls. Rajasthan is in second place with 674 abandoned children between 2007 and 2011, the first place is Maharashtra, where 1,232 babies were deserted.
The Cradles for Life popped up in Rajasthan after the regular abandonment of the girl child. One such incident occurred when a girl child, with the umblical cord still attached and in critical health, was left in front of a city hospital in Bharatpur Rajasthan. The child barely fed and drenched after hours of rain all through the night was admitted to the Intensive care unit. She was shifted to another hospital for better medical treatment where her health deteriorated further. The child Welfare committee lodged a complaint with the Police for abandonment.
The abandoning of the girl child has been on the increase in Rajasthan, to fight this the state government decided to come up with Cradles for Life, where 67 cradles have been placed across the state. The satellite hospitals help parents to leave the child in the cradle anonymously. Devendra Agarwal, the health advisor of the scheme said in a press statement, “The main aim of the scheme is to save the newborn babies who are dumped in dustbins and bushes right after birth, most of whom happen to be girls.”
After the baby is placed in the cradle, a bell rings three minutes later, alerting the hospital that a child has been placed in the cradle. The child is shifted to neonatal Intensive care unit where she will be taken care of, cleared for any illness and relocated to adoption agencies owned by the Government.
There are a total 37 adoption centers, these have been selected by the state for the caring for these abandoned children. Twenty newborn babies have been received in the cradles since February when the project was implemented. The project’s motto is, ‘Don’t dump, give them to us’, which helps both the abandoning parents and those who want to adopt. The project gives every daughter the right to live and grow.
A country where a goddess is prayed to, and a girl child is abandoned, one can only hope for a future where the daughter is not considered a burden, and a woman helpless.
