Battered two-year-old girl casts harsh light on India's social system

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
3/4/2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Fifteen-year-old caregiver accused of inflicting injuries on baby

A horrifying story is emerging from India that casts a very harsh light on that country's social support systems. A two-year-old baby girl has been rescued from her 15-year-old female caregiver after suffering countless human bite marks - inflicted by her caregiver.

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LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - An investigation revealed that the baby had changed several hands, winding up with the 15-year-old girl, herself a sexual abuse victim of the man with whom she eloped in order to escape an abusive father. In her anger and frustration, the teenager brutally abused the infant before dropping her off at the hospital.

As police hunted for the baby's birthmother Munni, who had been separated from her children, authorities came upon a sordid story about India's treatment of female children.

Doctors have waged a six-week battle to keep the child alive, but they are losing hope she will ever live a normal life after the torture she endured at such a tender age.

The child, identified as Baby Falak is suffering from battered baby syndrome, in which an infant sustains injuries as a result of physical abuse, usually inflicted by an adult caregiver.

Internal injuries, cuts, burns, bruises and broken or fractured bones are all possible signs -- and Baby Falak has suffered it all.

Social workers say she is but one of countless infants who suffer similar trauma and whose stories almost always go unreported. In the first two months of 2012 alone, four baby girls between the ages of two days and six months were found abandoned on trains and roads across Indian cities like Bhopal and Asansol.

Activists claim that while newborn girls live an insecure life and fall prey to atrocities, countless girls in India are eliminated even before they see the light of this world.

"According to the 2011 Census and other national statistics 700,000 girl children are missing at birth (due to termination of pregnancy once a fetus' sex is confirmed) and experts say this may reach the one million mark in this decade if serious effort is not made to reverse or halt it," Akhila Sivadas, executive director of the New Delhi-based Centre for Advocacy and Research says.

Sivadas' remarks come in the wake of a new United Nations study indicating that India is the world's most dangerous place for girl children.

"Sex Differentials in Childhood Mortality," a project of the U.N.'s Department of Economic and Social Affairs reveals that a girl aged between one and five years is 75 percent more likely to die than a boy in India, marking the world's most extreme gender disparity in child mortality.

Global infant and child mortality rates have been on the decline in recent years, with a large portion of the world seeing young girls experiencing higher rates of survival than young boys; India remains the notable exception to this positive trend.

� 2012, Catholic Online. Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.

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Keywords: India, child abuse, battery, social system

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1 - 7 of 7 Comments

Neil
8 months ago
Jesus Christ, be with this poor child. Rescue ALL children from abuse!
"G.G." a Pro-Life Catholic American
1 year ago
As I read this story, tears are running down my face.........How can these atrocities be allowed?
My GOD, how could anyone have allowed Baby Falak to have suffered so much without knowing
how she was being treated? Please, dear GOD do not let her suffer anymore....take her to Heaven
where she will know your LOVE forever....The fortunate people from India that live here in America
should show responsibility and caring love for the less fortunate in their country.....My heart aches
for Baby Falak.....I want to take her in my arms and LOVE her....GOD bless her......
Callista
1 year ago
This is really a sad and heartbreaking story. Please, fathers and mothers, You are privileged to be addressed a such because someone showed you love and brought you up to be alive today. Please, love your children and give them a chance to live, whether a boy or a girl, they are special in the sight of God.
mila
1 year ago
It is sad that some people have this kind of aatitude. Yet India is trying to control child birth and in America most couples wants have kids or either adopt them.
George
1 year ago
I stay at Delhi, India. I have been reading about baby Falak for the last one month. Now this girl will never be able to lead a normal life, moreover she is alone. She is suffering so much. I hope that our Lord calls her to heaven.
Margaret
1 year ago
I type this email/note, hoping persons from INDIA, read this. Poor little Falak, God love this child & others like her. I "PLEAD" to the People of INDIA, PROTECT YOUR CHILDREN because these children, never asked to be brought into this world. As for the "WIVES & MOTHERS" show them DECENCEY. Try being nice, decent to your fellow persons no matter what sex they are.. Civility costs "NOTHING". And DADS(NOT ALL Dads), your daughters are not for your sexual pleasures. Without Prejudice.
shawna sheridan
1 year ago
This is heartbreaking, what is the policy for American adoption of these girls? I know that I would consider it.

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