Time to eradicate archaic notions

Following the birth of quadruplets last week, quite a number of anti-female statements were made by various people. While the parents and the country celebrated their birth there were some people who saw it in a different, anti-female angle. They forgot the fact that children are not born on their own or the mothers do not create quadruplets purposely.

"That man will never go close to that woman again. He will be dead scared", This was the exact words that came out from a man who works for a reputed private company. He is young, married, has children and I am sure at least he had passed his Advanced Level Examination.

What on Earth made him utter those words? He has forgotten that the person who gave birth to him was a woman and his wife is also another woman.

This is another man's statement after hearing the birth and seeing the pictures of the new born babies was "God help that man. What a heavy burden on him. Now he has to find dowry for four girls." These were the exact words of an educated male, employed in another private company who has one or two rich and educated daughters. Surprisingly that person is not that old to hold on to such an outdated and inhuman opinion. What on Earth made him think like that?

After hearing those 'comments', one thing came into my mind. I just wanted to be there and remind those persons about their `comments' when they grow old and feeble and depend on their daughters for support.

Only then will they realise that their daughters are not a burden but a treasure. But then it will be too late because they have already ill-treated their daughters and treated them as second class children. They have also fed them with those negative ideas thereby encouraging them to think that daughters are a burden. No wonder if the Sri Lankan society start to terminate female births one day just like most of the Indians.

How about the gender mainstreaming done by various state and non Governmental institutions during past decades? What is the result of various 'awareness programmes' carried out by those institutions? Where are our so called social ethics and cultural values? We are living in the 21st century but it seems some people still live in the 18th century.

Daughters are still a burden for them and a birth of a girl is something sad for them. But daughters become their rescuers, when they fall sick in their old age.

As world famous prominent Sri Lankan writer Ms. Punyakanthi Wijenayake stated in one of her novels some Sri Lankans still think that daughters are a burden and bring them up to be re-planted in someone else's garden and see it grow as a big tree in that garden.

They never treat daughters as full human beings who deserve a complete life. According to them daughters should be re-planted in someone else's garden when they are grown.

As long as we nurture such ideals we will never be able to walk forward with the rest of the world. Daughters will definitely become a burden only if parents do not let them grow up as full human beings and treat them equally.

If parents treat their daughters as `half children' and allocate less resources for them, they will become burdens who need bribes (dowry) to give away to someone.

But if the parents let their daughters grow as full human beings they will become a blessing for them. There will be no need of a bribe, additional protection or guidance. But no one knows when some Sri Lankans are going to realise this truth. So called local women's organisations make sure that they never touch such issues.

What is happening today is that poor and innocent rural girls coming to Colombo to work and collect the bribe. Their parents are too poor to collect the bribe. Some of those girls collect the bribe, go to their native villages and get 'married' to the person who accepts the bribe while other innocent poor girls become victims of perverts while in the process of collecting the money for the bribe.

This can be stopped if so-called women's organisations conduct awareness programmes in villages just to explain to the public the value of educating and empowering their female children.