Pune: From poor sex ratio conditions to celebrating the birth of girls, Bhalgaon in Maharashtra’s Aurangabad district along with a few other villages have come a long way to emerge as the leaders of change. Under the initiative taken by a voluntary organization named Watershed Organization Trust (WOTR), 20 villages in Gangapur tehsil have been able to improve their sex ratio by 29% between 2015 and 2017.
The efforts of WOTR have also been appreciated by the government authorities. He termed the results as encouraging. According to WOTR, when it started the project in 2015, the average child sex ratio in these villages was 863 girls per 1,000 boys. The organization claimed that in 2017 the child sex ratio in these villages increased to 1,113 girls per 1,000 boys. Pritilata Gaikwad, Head of Women’s Empowerment Affairs at WOTR, said that changing people’s attitude towards the birth of girls was a big challenge in the initial phase. Gaikwad is leading the project in five districts of Maharashtra.
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He said, “Balgaon and other villages of the region were selected for the project because there were a lot of cases of sex determination tests and female feticide. When we started our work in 2015, people used to refuse to listen to us on this subject.” Although the project was initially named ‘Save the Girl Child’, it was changed to ‘Chance for Girls’ locally. Simultaneously, the organization started reaching out to newly married couples and their families, so that the importance of girls in the society could be underlined.
Gaikwad said, “We encouraged people to celebrate the birth of every girl child in the community as a festival. Photographs of the family with the newborn were taken, plated and then presented to the families at a public function to honor them. This unique celebration became a source of joy for many families in the region.” Rani Sheikh associated with the project said that in these villages those couples were also honored who got sterilization done after the birth of one or two daughters.
Sopan Jadhav, a resident of Hadiyabad village selected for the project, said, “Earlier the proportion of girls in our village was very low, as people used to do sex determination tests and abortion of female foetuses. But after this project there has been a positive change in the village and child sex ratio has improved.” (agency)