REPORTER:   Yalda Hakim 

In this southern city of Madurai, today is the festival of Meenakshi, Hindu goddess of fertility. Madurai is known for its many temples and it’s worship of Hindu Goddesses, but this city and its district harbours a far more sinister custom - female infanticide. On the outskirts of the city I have come to meet Parvati, desperately poor, she passes her time caring for her sister's son. She no longer has children of her own.

PARVATI (Translation):  Whenever I talk about it, I feel pain in my heart – I try to avoid it. What happened to the first baby?  My husband threw the baby into the well and killed it.

Parvati says her husband killed her baby daughter because they would never be able to afford to pay the girl's marriage dowry.

PARVATI (Translation):  I went mad screaming for my daughter, maybe for a year and a half.

Her second child was also a girl.

PARVATI (Translation):   He wanted to kill the second baby, the baby was beautiful – why should we kill our baby? So I kept her.

But Parvati tells me she only had her baby for 40 days. 

PARVATI (Translation):    They took her off me, gave her away – saying that I, the mother was dead. I should have brought the baby back and she would have been well and I would have been well. I do not know where she is now.

The villagers say Parvati has lost her mind, because of the ordeal.

PARVATI (Translation):  I gave birth to two unfortunate daughters - everything left in my life is unfortunate.

Parvati is one of many women suffering in this region. Social and financial pressures means some mothers feel they have little choice but to abort, abandon, or kill their children. But there's hope in this bleak picture. This is the Madurai Mercy home for abandoned children. The volunteers who work here are determined that despite their rough start in life the children will have a future.

JESSE TURCOTTE:  All they need is attention most of the time. Someone to hold them.

Jesse and Suzanna moved from the US to volunteer in the mercy home.

JESSE TURCOTTE: They were found on the side of the road, left in bus stands, left in taxis, hospitals. Amazing.

Jesse says the mother of an unwanted girl child is as much the victim as the baby.

JESSE TURCOTTE:  More cases than not that we've seen, when the mother surrenders the child, it's in tears, it's with tears and it's not an easy thing to do, I don't think any mother wants to get rid of her child, but we had mothers that bring babies to us and abandon them and say please take my child, if I go back to my village today the baby will be dead tomorrow, because someone will kill the baby.

The mercy home's outreach programme has been trying to educate locals about the importance of not taking a baby's life, instead surrendering them to the home for adoption.

SUZANNA TURCOTTE:  Two months ago one little baby boy was found many the gutter, completely newborn.

WOMAN (Translation):  Oh yes, he has gone for adoption.

SUZANNA TURCOTTE:   Oh, already, oh good so when there's a boy found like that you can pretty much be sure it's an unwed mother.

JESSE TURCOTTE:  The end result is very fulfilling, to see the babies go to nice families, they come back 3 or 4 months, 6months,  a year later, they're healthy, well dressed, speaking English and Tamil, usually bi-lingual, starting school, parents love them.

But Suzanna and Jesse are struggling against deeply ingrained attitudes.

SUZANNA TURCOTTE:  It's mostly economic, but it's part of the cultural tradition of India to prefer a male. So for example in the cities you might not have a problem with infanticide but you may have problems with foeticide even amongst the wealthy who are educated that are supposed to know better, they will still prefer a male.

Foeticide means terminating a pregnancy based on gender. Scans to determine the sex of your unborn child are illegal in India. But the practice continues.

SUZANNA TURCOTTE:  It takes a little money under the table or some corrupt people who are willing to tell the sex of the child.

Suzanna tells me that some of the handicapped babies in the mercy home are children born from failed abortion attempts.

SUZANNA TURCOTTE:  They will try different things that they were explaining to us about maybe drinking strong tea on an empty stomach or taking this or that, or starving themselves, whatever to try to abort an unwanted female foetus, now if that attempt fails, sometimes the only result is you get a handicapped child, which is very sad.

You're a lovely girl.

This is three-year-old Suleha, born without a right femur.

SUZANNA TURCOTTE:  She's been here since she was a baby.

Good girl.

Suzanna and Jesse tell me some of the disabilities these children have could also be the result of in-breeding. Around the corner from the mercy home I meet Amrita. In order to save paying a hefty dowry, Amrita says she had little choice but to arrange for her brother to marry her 15-year-old daughter.  

AMRITA (Translation):   Otherwise they would ask for a large dowry, yes.  “How much gold, how much education?”  “Give us that much gold…”   Manu families do this because they fear losing their property, in my case – I did not have enough money so I forced her into this marriage.

Amrita says education and the law is starting to have an effect on the rate of female infanticide.

AMRITA (Translation):  The government said they would jail anyone who kills, that was a threat, after that people changed. People use family planning, they are happy with two children.

I've come to visit this community on the outskirts of Madurai. The mercy home says it has a reputation for female infanticide, but even here the message of sparing the girl child seems to be getting through. 

WOMAN (Translation):  Sane people do not kill baby girls.  Yes, yes, some are very poor and can not afford them, girls will need a dowry, but how can we earn enough to pay for that?  That’s why, so we don’t end up having to pay a dowry, the parents leave the baby girls at mercy homes.

Back at the Madurai Mercy home, Jesse and Suzanna know there is no quick fix to this complex infanticide problem. But they're determined to continue their good work.

JESSE TURCOTTE:  Maybe this baby will become something great, or maybe this person will just have a normal life. And how can you say to any baby - that you can't live?

Reporter/Camera

YALDA HAKIM

Producer

VICTORIA STROBL

Fixers

TANAYA DAS

Editors

ANGUS FORBES

DAVID POTTS

Translation/Subtitling 

EDILBERT RAJADURAI

Original Music composed by

VICKI HANSEN 

19th September 2010