A massive rally being taken out by NGOs with 63 meters long National Flag to sensitize people on girl child protection at Marriguda in Nalgonda District on Wednesday. Photo:Singam Venkataramana
Participants carried a 63-metre-long national flag to sensitise the public on the need to save the girl child
To sensitise people on the issue of protecting the girl child, NGOs took out a massive rally here on Wednesday, holding a 63-metre-long national flag at Marriguda mandal headquarters.
A huge number of students, local public representatives, officials and representatives of various NGOs took part in the rally.
The procession, which began at Vattipalli Chowrastha, had students marching to the old bus station, while raising slogans on the need to maintain gender equality.
Speaking on the occasion, Action Aid India programme officer Kalapana Dayala said though some errant hospitals had been conducting sex determination tests, the government could not curb such practices due to lack of an able monitoring mechanism.
“Sex determination tests have been contributing to the decline of girl children in the State as many parents are going in for abortions if the child was found to be a girl,” she lamented, adding that given the rising levels of violence against women in the country, there existed among couples a fear to raise the girl child.
The rising gap in sex ratio would further cause problems in the country, if government failed to take appropriate measures to contain it, she said.
Kanchukatla Subhash, president of GRASS, an NGO, appealed to the district administration to take up special educative programmes to protect the girl child.
Local MLA Kusukuntla Prabhakar Reddy, representatives of NGOs, and others took part.
Source: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/telangana/nalgonda-ngos-rally-around-the-girl-child/article6545391.ece
