Christmas thoughts of India

 Christmas thoughts of India

I have wanted to say more of about our activities in India but for security reasons, I thought it more prudent to wait until I was out of the country before putting up any posts that may be misunderstood. Getting into India was a little difficult this time.

We are on the home stretch to Christmas 2019 a time when we focus on family and look forward to the love and the fun and the giving and the blessings of Christmas.

In India, I was there to help Vanitashray celebrate 20 years of ministry. It was a joy to do that and go to some of the ministry sites to see firsthand some of the challenges that they are experiencing as a ministry.

As we toured these sites and spoke to staff and clients, one issue stood out more than any others that were highlighted repeatedly; and that was the value of the girl child.

Many of you will already know that I have strong views about this issue. I am a husband and a father and a grandfather and a son a brother and a friend. Many of my associates and work colleagues are women. I respect women and want to see them move ahead without the raw deals that are so often handed out to them that would deny them their value and “equalness” with men. No, our genders are not the same but we are equal in value and should be able to collaborate without all the angst. Life is simple if work on the principle that the man is not the king and the woman is not the slave! Nuff said!

In India, there are complications to gender equality. One is that there is religious teaching that women are not to be trusted and are lower in value that some of the animals, and then there is abject poverty.

Hinduism teaches that women cannot be trusted and must never be independent.

Women are liars, corrupt, greedy, and unvirtuous. Manu II 1

Her father protects (her) in childhood, her husband protects (her) in youth, and her sons protect (her) in her old age; a woman is never fit for independence. Manuasmriti 9:3

No sacrifice, no vow, no fast must be performed by women, apart from their husbands. If a wife obeys her husband, she will for that reason alone be exalted in heaven. (Manu V. 155)

All women are born of sinful wombs. Bhagavad-Gita IX 32

Sacrifices performed by women are inauspicious and not acceptable to god. They should, therefore, be avoided. Manu IV. 206

When creating them, Manu allotted to women (a love of their) bed, (of heart) seat and (of) ornament, impure desires, wrath, dishonesty, malice, and bad conduct. Manu IX.17

There are many more than what I have mentioned here. I make this point not to make people angry but to show that in India the religious status quo is highly biased against women having any value, that the devaluing and bias sees girl children and women treated badly as a matter of religious practice. The things you believe to be true will shape your actions and every action has a consequence.   

Vanitashray, the project we were visiting specializes in caring for orphans and abandoned children and widows. India has 46 million widows more than any other country in the world! It also has 30 million abandoned children.

Whilst at the 20^th year celebrations I met a young girl who was 23 years old and she had a cute baby. This girl came to Vanitashray at 3 years of age. When she arrived, she had been so badly sexually assaulted that she could not walk, or talk. Her father was trying to sell her for 2,000 rupees. She was of no value to him.

This little girl grew up in Vanitashray in a loving environment where she was loved, valued and treated with dignity.  She now has a much better life. However, if you think cases like hers are a rare find, unfortunately, they are not. Because girl children are not valued, they are disposable. After meeting this young lady and her baby, I came back to my hotel and read this article in the local paper.

Families with too many girl children are known to sell them into brothels because they are of no value. Widows are often sold into the sex trade by family or neighbours. Selling any girl/woman to a brothel, or any other form of slavery because they are perceived to be otherwise valueless is wrong there are no excuses that can justify it. Raping a young girl because her life does not otherwise matter is wrong, inexcusable and reprehensible. The man is not the king and the woman is not the slave.

We can complain about corruption that sees only a few of these cases ever get prosecuted or even investigated, but the reality is that the problem lies fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the men who run the brothels and finance the trafficking of women and children into the sex trade. Of men who kidnap children and women to make a profit. Of men who use the brothels. (If there were no demand, there would be no sex trade.) Of men cast off their wives or desert their families and leave them to fend for themselves whilst they take all the family assets with them and seek a new relationship. 

I stand with Christian projects like Vanitashray because they make a difference in the lives of those who have been cast aside and abandoned to a fate of indescribable horror, solely based on their gender.

Vanitashray has many cases of horror like these that have turned ok because the child/woman was able to be placed into a loving, caring, environment that treated them with respect, and by doing that gave them a future and a hope.

In refugee camps, we also hear sad tales of women being mistreated.

This Christmas I will be celebrating with my family and enjoying the love and excitement that this season brings to the children in our family. But in the back of my mind will also be thoughts and prayers for the girl children who whilst I celebrate the love of Christmas with my family, are perhaps experiencing the worst day of their lives.

I do not go in for New Year’s resolutions, but in 2020, I am going to try to do better as a man and make more of a stand for the world’s women. What about you?