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SCMP Reporter

A premier children's hospital in south India has introduced a scheme to save the lives of unwanted babies, in a country where many parents prize boys and dread having girls.

Parents wanting to dispose of an unwanted baby can walk into the Trivandrum clinic run by the non-profit government organisation, Kerala Child Welfare Council, place the baby in a crib with an electronic sensor and leave secretly.

After the person has left, an electronic buzzer alerts the nurse on duty about the new arrival. Out of 20 newborns deposited last month, 15 were girls.

Female infanticide and selective  abortions are so rampant across India that in some states  there are only 600 females  for every 1,000 males.

The plummeting sex ratio has alarmed demographic experts who have repeatedly urged the government to go after parents or midwives who kill  baby girls.

Trivandrum's electronic cradle is the brainchild of Kerala's crusading chief minister, A.K. Anthony, who is also the chief patron of the welfare council.

Mr Anthony was upset by reports of newborn baby girls being dumped in garbage bins.

Last year, street dogs mauled a one-day-old baby thrown into a dump, triggering outrage in Kerala, which  has the highest literacy rate in India.

Non-governmental organisations are  fighting the  practice of abandoning, strangling, drugging and  beating newborn girls to death.

Experts say baby girls are killed at birth because they are perceived as a financial burden by parents who are forced to pay dowry to marry them off when they grow up. A boy, by contrast, is regarded as an asset and pampered from birth.

Last year, another southern state, Tamil Nadu, offered to bring up any baby girl abandoned by her parents.

But the scheme got bogged down in formalities.

Some NGOs are now training teenage girls as vigilantes to stop the killing of female newborns by families or midwives in far-flung villages of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.

And in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan - which have the worst gender ratios - the local governments have even enlisted the clergy to save abandoned baby girls.

Hindu and Sikh priests have been given strict orders to create awareness by speaking out against female infanticide in their sermons.



Scheme aims to save lives of India's unwanted babies