Yahoo Lifestyle The Rise Of Baby Girl Power
Proud mum Jyoty Chauhan, 26, receives a box of chocolates at a Beti Utsav party in New Delhi in celebration of the birth of her daughter.
Nandini, a mild-mannered girl in her 20s, takes to the microphone in front of a crowd, her baby daughter held to her chest. "Yes!" she cries. "We had a baby girl. And I must be the happiest person on this planet today."
Nandini is speaking in New Delhi's Dwarka district at a Beti Utsav - a mass celebration of the birth of girls into the community. Beti Utsav (which means festival for daughters) is an initiative launched by Action India, a partner of the charity ActionAid, to combat gender discrimination and female infanticide.
Every three months, staff log the number of girls born in Delhi. The mothers are contacted and brought together with their families and communities for a big party. Locals march down the street, singing, dancing, banging drums and holding banners reading: "Boys and girls are equal!" Once the party reaches the mothers' homes, they are given sweets and wished good luck, amid chants of "Beti Mubarak, ho!'" ("Congratulations on the birth of your baby girl.")
Until now, it was only boys who were celebrated in this way. In India, males are prized, since the family name and property are passed down to them, whereas girls are seen as a financial drain because of the enormous expense of dowries. Women who give birth to girls are often ostracised from their communities, or feel such pressure to produce a son that they have their girl aborted. As a result, Delhi has the worst child sex ratio of the country, with only 866 girls to 1000 boys. (The national average is 914 girls to 1000 boys.)
Yet change is happening, says Padma, a volunteer: "One woman recently told me she took her daughter-in-law to a clinic for a sex-determination test. But after witnessing the Beti Utsav, she dissuaded her daughter-in-law and son from having an abortion. The family later invited us to their house to celebrate their Beti Utsav."
Currently, the Beti Utsav initiative operates in nine communities across Delhi, but is part of a bigger campaign for gender equality taking place across India right now called Beti Zindabad - meaning "Daughters. Long live."
"Every time we have these events," says Smita Khanijow, from ActionAid India, "I am struck by the resolve and grit of these mothers to ensure a life of dignity for themselves and their little ones."
For more information or to donate, visit actionaid.org.
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