Tekst:
The orphanages of India's southernmost state are dominated by female children. Abandoned by their parents or rescued from the streets, these victims of a male-biased culture rely on charitable organisations and state resources to support them. Jill Fordham investigates the life, within a day, of India's girl orphans
Statistics have revealed that over the past 20 years in India as many as 10 million girls have been killed by their parents either before or immediately after birth. Further figures on gender ratios show that for every 1,000 boys under the age of six, there are a mere 927 girls – the most imbalanced ratio in the world and a figure that is still declining.Many of those who survive female foeticide and infanticide are destined to spend some or all of their lives in institutions, a large number of which come under the auspice of Mother Teresa of Calcutta and her missionaries of charity.
Here in the southernmost state of Kerala, the government has chosen August 26, the day Mother Teresa was born in 1910, to be celebrated as Orphan Day, thus enabling children who have never known their birthday to have reason to celebrate.
Quietly situated on a suburban street, in small but well-tended gardens – an oasis of calm compared to the cacophony of city life metres away – stands the Nirmala Shisu Bhavan Orphanage. This is home to 60 children who are diligently cared for by eight devoted sisters and 15 helpers.
A flight of steps leads me up into a reception area, from where I am taken into a large airy room that is uniformly laid out with rows of around 30 cots. The babies in them lie static as dolls. Most are girls. In a room where one would expect to hear a baby's cry, there is an uncanny air of silence – disturbed only by the movement of a helper who tenderly feeds a baby who has woken from her sleep.
Through another door the silence is of a more disconcerting nature – it is determined not by slumber but by suffering. For here, in larger cots, lie the distorted bodies of children abandoned on account of their mental and physical disabilities. Here there are boys as well as girls; the cruel fate of disability at least is not gender selective.We are interrupted by a group of young street children, none more than three year old, who were brought in by the police two nights earlier. All are girls with excited faces framed with long tangled hair. Unfamiliar with the gentility of the orphanage they plunge their tiny, desperate hands into my bag. They are gently reprimanded by the sister, who removes their hands and affectionately pats them on their heads. I hold out my hand to them, but they are not used to warm gestures so withdraw and regard me with suspicion.
As I leave the sisters retreat to the chapel to pray. For one lucky baby their prayers seem have been answered, because a childless couple arrive and, having successfully negotiated the long legal process of adoption, are here to collect their new baby – a boy.
A short drive into the city of Trivandrum takes me to the Sri Chitra Home for the Destitute and Infirm, founded in 1934 by the Maharaja of Travancore. Then there were just nine residents; at present there are 300 orphans, 231 of whom are girls.
I am captivated by a young girl in a yellow dress called Sreekutty. I learn that she is one of the lucky ones – she still has her mother, with whom she maintains contact. She is five years old and was admitted to the orphanage after her mother tried to commit suicide, which was a result of Sreekutty's father leaving her with three young children. There is a chance Sreekutty will go home one day.
For those who won't be adopted or have the chance to return home, there is still an opportunity for rehabilitation in the form of marriage. The government encourages prospective grooms to consider marrying the girls here, regardless of their caste and their destitution – and to date 70 marriages have taken place at the home. The costs, including dresses and jewellery, are met by sponsors of the institution.
Much of the basic funding comes from the Kerala state government, which acknowledges the importance of education in challenging the poor status of women. There are opportunities for education up to college level, both in vocational and non-vocational training, with much emphasis also on dance, drama and music, for despite being born into poverty, many of these youngsters are the possessors of great talent.
I travel 25km south of Trivandrum to an area renowned for its miles of silver sands and luxurious Ayurvedic resorts, for which Kerala has world-wide acclaim. I have arranged to meet Pushpa Johnson, a friend I met on my travels to India, who worked with Mother Teresa in Calcutta during the 1980s.
She is waiting for me outside the gates of a sombre stone convent, which is home to 70 abandoned women. I am led to a dormitory that is cast with moving shadows, as those women who are able shuffle slowly to collect their meals. Others simply sit and stare, as though the traumas they suffered have stemmed their speech.Most have been abandoned by their families and picked up from the streets. Their suffering is indiscriminate of age, and while many suffer from diseases, others are afflicted with mental health disorders – the cause of their rejection. The suicide rate among women in Kerala is reported to be twice the national average, which is surprising in a state with a reputation for advanced healthcare. But as with their high literacy levels, perhaps it is in the clash of their progress with deep-rooted cultural barriers that the problems lie.
Mariamma, I am told, first came to the convent 30 years ago. Then a young girl from a very poor farming family, she came to help in the kitchen and has remained ever since. It is chilling yet warming to watch her as she tenderly feeds grains of sustenance to a motionless, dying woman. Next to the woman lies a leper, warmly cared for by another helper who will tend her to her death – thus allowing her, in the words of Mother Teresa, a "beautiful death", which "is for people who lived like animals to die like angels – loved and wanted".
For me, as I leave, there is a release from this darkness, but for those I leave behind there is little chance of liberation other than in the form of reincarnation, and with that the hope of a more just and merciful life.