Male Foeticide is the order of the day in Agra brothels
By VISHAL SHARMA
Agra, 30 Oct. A newborn boy faces certain death here while the birth of a girl means celebration. Mothers carry their pregnancies to full-term only if the foetus is a girl; otherwise, the foetus is aborted.
A custom prevalent earlier in Bedias, a tribal community of nearby Rajasthan, engaged in
The call-girl rackets busted in Agra recently by the police feature a common fact; almost all pregnancies go through the process of sex-determination and a male foetus is invariably aborted but a female foetus is nurtured with care to give birth to another generation of sex-slaves.
Basai Khurd, a ten-thousand strong settlement of Bedia sex-workers, on the outskirts of Agra near the world famous monument Tajmahal is notorious for being among north India's largest settlements of sex-workers. While the men of the "colony" can be seen basking in the sunlight, it's the women of the house, who sell themselves day and night to earn bread. Pregnancy is not unwelcome here, though the unborn's chances of living hang on the delicate thread of its sex.
A male child is hardly desired as he cannot "work" for the family and most such pregnancies are terminated with the aid of some nursing homes cropping up in the colony. Though the resident males of the colony are not willing to accept this fact, the proportionately huge population of girls, compared to boys, is enough to prove it. Sources inform that more than often, it is the would-be mother, who takes the decision of terminating her pregnancy in case she's carrying a male child in her womb.
Two such mothers, arrested in Agra recently by the UP police in connection with the bar girl racket had elaborated on this practice upon interrogation by the police. According to one, she had arrived in Agra to give birth to a girl child, whose sex had been determined during her earlier visit to Agra. The other too had given birth to a stillborn girl. If the police had not nabbed her, they would have returned to the Mili Beer Bar in Thane (Mumbai), where they worked for Rs. 400/- per night, leaving the infant girl behind to be raised by “retired” bargirls.
The family bonds in this racket are so strong that these bargirls toil hard in the Mumbai bars to send a large part of their income to the “retired” bargirls living in Agra, who also serve as maids for the next generation bargirls being prepared here. The arrested bargirls claim to be the daughters of the chief operative of the Agra based unit of this racket and they are not aware of their true identity, pledging complete loyalty to their “adapted mother”.
The girls acknowledge that the practice of injecting female growth hormones into immature girls kidnapped from nearby towns and metros has been adapted widely in the flesh-trade and both on them had been administered these injections in their childhood to make them “well-proportioned” and “filled up” at just the right places. They say that the career of a bargirl is not long and as her bodily attraction fades, she is slowly passed on by the newer generation arriving from Agra and other towns. A bargirl aged above thirty is totally unwanted in the Mumbai flesh-trade and at this ripe age, they return to Agra or their other haunts to nurse a new generation of bargirls either born in their “family” or kidnapped from the nearby towns to prevent this “chain” from snapping.
The police sources have confirmed that they have found links of this sex-trade racket with some local medicos who aid these bargirls in sex-determination, abortions, deliveries and administration of hormone injections to underage girls. A local nursing home owner has also been nailed down by the police in this connection.
(UNITED NEWS NETWORK)
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