The Christian Science Monitor Weekly - April 16, 2018

he says. “These are girls who want change.”

Yet for all the national focus on girls and

the district’s efforts to improve their lives,

there’s evidence that the long-held preju-

dices against girls remain strong.

S.K. Lalitha, Viluppuram’s social welfare

director, notes that the district’s female-to-

male birth ratio actually declined over the

past decade, despite sustained national and

state campaigns against sex selection and

female infanticide. The 2016 family health

survey showed that in the previous year 819

girls were born for every 1,000 boys – 777

girls for every 1,000 boys in rural areas.

“Those numbers are alarming, but they

back up what I hear so many mothers say,

that there is no security today for girls and

that life for girls is getting harder,” Ms. La-

litha says. “That’s one reason the positive

example of girls like those in Thennamadevi

is so important.”

Other clubs are being set up, too. Across the

country in the northern Indian state of Ra-

jasthan, UNFPA and UNICEF have teamed

up with local NGOs to create a network of

hundreds of “kishoris,” or adolescent girls

clubs, in some of the conservative state’s

most remote areas.

On a sunbaked day in the village of Lam-

ba Kalan, girls from 10 to 19 years old hear

from one of the older members of her mar-

riage at age 5. Another tells of being married

off when she was 9 because her father was

ill and the family needed money. Both girls

pledge to “never allow my daughter to marry

as a child!”

Then several girls put on a play whose

story line in their area remains more fact

than fiction: It’s about an impending child

marriage. After the teacher in the play tells

a mother that marrying off her daughter be-

fore she’s 18 is illegal, the mother confronts

her husband: “I want our daughter to be a

teacher or a doctor, not to get married and

have babies so young as I did!”

The father’s retort is one many of Lam-

ba Kalan’s girls say rings familiar: “If our

daughter gets too much education, we will

have trouble later finding her a suitable hus-

band,” he says. “A girl’s place is at home,

and then marrying and going to live in her

husband’s home.”

Then comes the closing line from the

mother, a line that draws enthusiastic ap-

plause from the girls club members: “No,

that’s no longer true. Life for our daughters

is changing!”

The enthusiasm of mothers for their

daughters’ accomplishments is in fact no

longer just theater, at least in places like

Thennamadevi.

Standing on the stoop of her home on a

village side street, Maragatham Radakrish-

nan hugs her daughter Kousalya and mar-

vels at her confidence and determination.

“I never could have imagined a daughter

of mine accomplishing even half of what

Kousalya has done,” she says, beaming.

Having never been to school herself, Ms.

Radakrishnan says her biggest dream had

always been that her daughter would be

able to get some education. And now here’s

Kousalya getting that education – and lead-

ing a movement.

“I see her doing things for the village and

helping the younger girls, and it makes me

so proud,” she says. “That she can speak

up like she does, it’s amazing to me. She’s

becoming a leader.” r

VFROM PREVIOUS PAGE

‘Five years ago

we didn’t even

have girls here,

and now they are

almost always

the strongest in

our subjects and

produce the best

results.’

• Vazha Jayachandran,
  principal of Thiruvalluvar Technical Institute

Malarvizhi Pandurangan (c.), secretary of the

Thennamadevi girls club, stands with other mem-

bers of the group after a meeting in their village.

HOWARD LAFRANCHI/THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR