Hunger drives woman to sell infant son for Rs 400 …….Debasish Panigrahi
CRISIS In Jawhar,150 km from Mumbai, poverty, malnourishment rampant
CRISIS In Jawhar,150 km from Mumbai, poverty, malnourishment rampant
Six-month-old Sagar clings tightly to Manisha Gavit (30),knowing shes about to feed him as she adds warm water to a spoon of milk powder.She raises the feeding bottle,which he grabs.
Sagar is not Manishas child, but she has been caring for him since he was 13 days old, when she and her husband, Ramesh, bought him for Rs 400: the price his 28-year-old mother, driven by poverty, wanted for selling her new born.
She was so skinny and starved.We gave her Rs 400 for her expenses. She happily left the child with us,said Manisha as she puts the sleeping child in the cradle hung from the ceiling of her mud-brickhut.Sagar was all skin and bones, and many villagers said he wont survive, but hes fine now.
The Gavits live in Chondipada, a poverty-stricken tribal village in Jawhar taluka,150 km north of Mumbai and three hours drive from the citys high-rises, malls, restaurants and multiplexes.
In 1993, 43 children died of illnesses brought on by malnutrition in Jawhar.Last month, 20 children, whowere malnourished going by new World Health Organisation standards, died of various ailments pneumonia was the main killer.
In the village,its no secret that the childless Gavits have bought a baby from a widow who lives in Aakre village.
Ramchandra Navasu Baraph, a police patil (a villager who acts as the administrative contact) at Chondipada, confirmed the purchase.The widow is poor and desperately wanted to get rid of the child. She had no source of income and the baby would have died of hunger if left with her. As we knew her, we did not object,he said, explaining why no one from the village objected to the sale of a baby.
Its shocking.I cant believe this. I will conduct an inquiry to confirm the facts,said Vijay Joshi, deputy collector, Thane (rural), when he heard about the sale of the baby, which took place 15 km from his office. If true, I will ensure the mother and child are taken care of.
Villagers noticed this reporter and photographer and gathered at the Gavits hut. One of those assembled, Ashok Raghu Mahale has cleared HSC and is among the few educated tribals there. They [Gavits] have been married for 15 years but were childless. The widow came to them as she had heard that they wanted a child, Mahale said.
The Jawhar taluka has a population of around 1.27 lakh, 90 per cent of whom are tribals.
With little cultivable land and complete dependence on the monsoon they sow mainly paddymost tribal families have to work in brick kilns in Vasai and Nalasopara or in stone quarries at Virar for a living. Those who don’t find employment starve.
With malnutrition and starvation deaths reported from Jawhar for more than a decade, the state government has been giving free meals to around 11,400 children (up to 6 years) in the taluka under two child development projects. NB Khotre, assistant child development project officer,said of 11,400,morethan 26 per cent (3,729) suffer from malnutrition.
Dr Ramdas M Marad,superintendent at Patangshah Kutir, the 100-bed sub-district hospital at Jawhar, told Hindustan Times that around 30 per cent of the new borns in the taluka are under weight (below2.5 kg; the average weight is between 3 and 3.5kg).
Some babies birth weight is as low as 750 to 800 grams.
Even if they survive,they will be malnourished in the future, he said. Multiple marriages, multiple deliveries and pregnant women’s refusal to take medicines are the main causes of malnutrition in children.