Site icon The Daily Signal

#SelfieWithDaughter Campaign Sweeps India

  • Samantha Reinis

    • A child ties sacred threads to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the occasion of "Raksha Bandhan" festival in New Delhi, India. (Photo: Press Information Bureau Xinhua News Agency/Newscom)

    A hashtag has ignited a social media movement to promote the status of women and influence how many Indian families view having a daughter.

    Concerns over India’s growing population of almost 1.3 billion people has led to an imbalance of gender through the use of local sterilization quotas along with sex-selective abortion and infanticide. These two practices of aborting or killing baby girls are also called “gendercide.”

    There is a prevailing social emphasis in India on not only having a small family, but one that includes a son. With the expanding technology of ultrasounds, many couples are picking their ideal child, which in most cases means life for a boy and death for a girl. If the current sex ratios remain constant, by the year 2029 India will have lost 10 million girls from this practice of gendercide.

    Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided to address this issue on his monthly radio program “Mann Ki Baat” on June 28th by starting a social media campaign called #SelfiewithDaughter.

    The response in India was widespread and immediate, with many sharing family pictures and telling the world just how much their daughter meant to them.

     

     

    The movement even went global, with supporters all over the world hoping to help elevate the status of women through the example of their own daughters.

     

     

    While some critics of Modi say that this social media campaign was solely for political purposes, the prime minister’s blog claims that “Empowerment of women has been an issue on which PM attaches vital importance … [and] proactive steps have been taken for women empowerment be it in educating the girl child, maternal health, improving gender ratio and women’s safety.”

     

    No related posts.

    Exit mobile version