Tamil Nadu   

“Gender selection, a scourge in our society”

KARUR: All efforts should be taken to root out gender discrimination and constant vigil should be mounted on deploying technology such as foetus gender identification aimed at preventing girl child births, speakers said at a gender sensitisation and awareness workshop against gender discrimination at the Government Higher Secondary School, Thottakurichi, near here recently.

Psycho Trust organised the programme in which a lot of rights activists, students and women participated.

From time immemorial there had been discrimination against women. Even adages and sayings were bent against women and reduced them to second-rated citizens and worse still made them slavish. Efforts should be taken to change that attitude among sections of society, pointed out the Coordinator of the Psycho Trust, Philorani Christuraj.

Gender selection was a scourge in our community and modern technology was being put to wrong use, as in identifying the gender of the foetus, she said. If that was so for the female foetus, once it came to live in the outside world, the same discrimination continued in every sphere of activity.

She also pointed out the gradual decline in the male-female child ratio and called upon opinion-makers to concentrate on efforts to reverse the trend. Schemes being implemented by the Central and State governments should be fully made use of by the beneficiaries and agencies. Non-governmental organisations had a big role to play in such an effort.

Similarly, efforts should be taken to prevent and reduce sexual violations, especially against the juveniles. The assault on the young people left a lasting impression affecting the psyche of the affected person, she added.

Sangeetha and Prabhavathi of the Psycho Trust explained how children and women could safeguard themselves against gender discrimination.

Essay, elocution and slogan writing contests for students were held and prizes distributed to winners. The Thottakurichi Government Higher Secondary School Headmaster Dhandapani and other staff participated.

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