Her tale proves that the yearning for a male child has not waned despite massive campaigns
Sethaanibai (inset) with her daughters (Photo: DC)
Bidar: After a spree of pregnancies, 40-year-old Lambani woman Sethaanibai realised she was still where she had started off- without the elusive male child for which she had embarked on the ordeal of delivering 15 children.
Her tale proves that the yearning for a male child has not waned despite massive campaigns. And what did Seethaanibai do after delivering her 15th child, again a female? She abandoned the infant without even looking at its face!
There could not be a story more tragic than this to highlight the plight of the girl child in a country where the yearning for male children has led to rampant female feticide, a gender bias in all fields and harassment. The desire for a male child made a Lambani woman at Sindhol Thanda in Bidar taluk give birth to as many as 15 girl children, one each year for the last fifteen years. Of these 15, six children died after birth while the remaining nine are alive.
But the abject poverty and the failure to deliver a male child made Sethaanibai desert her 15th child she delivered on June 11 at a local government hospital. Sethaanibai’s husband Govardhan Rathod works as a coolie in Mumbai, the couple have no land of their own in the Thanda. Sethaanibai ekes out a living as a coolie. She has already married off her three elder daughters, the remaining children supplement her income working as coolies.
“I have given birth to so many children in the hope of getting a male child. I’m so ashamed to give birth again to a female, I did not even look at its face and left it in the hospital”, she says. She regrets that due to poverty she has not been able to look after her children and give them education. “With great difficulty I got my three daughters married off, the last one was done with donations collected from community members in the Thanda. I left my last child in the hospital as I do not have the resources to raise her. So far I have not got any benefit from the government, I appeal to them to come to my rescue”, Sethaanibai pleads.
On coming to know about her plight, officials of the department of women and child welfare visited the village. Besides promising to lend Rs 1 lakh for rearing cattle to support her family, the officials have decided to get her seven-year-old daughter into a hostel. The officials have reportedly convinced Sethaanibai that she should undergo tubectomy. However, she has informed them that she will take a final decision after obtaining the consent of her husband who is now in Mumbai.
According to Child Welfare Committee Member Mr Shashidhar Kosambe, the 15th child weighing about 3.5 kg is quite healthy. “She is in our custody, we will soon hand it over to the Child Adoption Centre at Kardyaal”, he added.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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