Dec 14
Gender Insurance in India
While India is busily transforming itself into a world economic power and its expatriates becoming major players in the North American technology field, it appears that some of the older cultural elements in Indian society require a little government assistance for their transformation.
Asian societies have long valued the birth of a son as a much more important addition to a family than a daughter. Conversely, girl children are often looked on as a burden, or as property to be passed off in arranged marriages. To counter the vestiges of this social anachronism the Indian government has proposed an insurance policy to be provided for girls being raised in India today.
Renuka Chowdbury, head of the Women and Child Development Ministry, has proposed an insurance cover of 100,000 rupees for girl children as “an incentive for their upbringing. Under the scheme, an insurance cover of 100,000 rupees will be provided for the girl child as a safety net, which would be given at the age of 18 years.” So says a news story out of New Delhi.
“Under the scheme, cash would be transferred to the family of the girl child, preferably to the mother on fulfilling certain conditions such as birth registration of the girl child, immunization, enrollment and retention in school and delaying the marriage age beyond 18 years.”
Expressing concern over the falling sex ratio of the girls due to female foeticide, Chowdbury said her ministry has taken up the matter of including gender sensitization and right of the child for inclusion in the school curriculum. According to the news story,she said, “female foeticide should be treated as a crime and not just a social evil.”
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December 27th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
It\’s so easy to forget that there are still places in the world where insurance like this would be necessary… and where circumstances would lead to the inclusion of remarks like \”female foeticide should be treated as a crime and not just a social evil.\” I look at my beautiful 2-year-old daughter, and am so grateful that she was born when and where she was!
Jerry
http://www.leads4insurance.com