Hyderabad: The Women’s Commission for Telangana and AP welcomed the Madras High Court’s recent suggestion that rapists of children must be castrated. Chairperson Tripurana Venkataratnam said it was the best solution for rapists. “Some 15 years back in several meetings I expressed the same opinion,” she said. Justice N. Kirubakaran of the Madras High Court in a recent order said castration for child rapists would fetch “magical” results in preventing child abuse.
She slammed human right activists who oppose castration, saying that the rape victims also have human rights. She also demanded a law to regulate surrogacy which she said had become a commercial activity in India.
“Please don’t treat women’s womb as a commodity. There must be a law which can regulate the activities of infertility clinics and the surrogacy industry which are concentrating only on earning money,” she said. She said many foreign nationals were coming to India to get surrogate babies for a low price. Surrogate mothers are poor and illiterate women, belonging to the Dalit and tribal women communities, she said.
“In most tribal belts, the agents recruit these women. All these factors finally exploit women,” she said and added that surrogacy has been prohibited in several countries including Australia, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Turkey while some other countries like Brazil have partially prohibited it. A draft legislation, The Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Bill 2014 is under consideration in the ministry of health and family welfare, she said. She said the AP and TS commission would conduct a consultation in the first week with women representatives and NGOs and send its recommendations to the Centre.
