The 21st century has witnessed a great rise in development around the world. Communications and scientific research are developing at a rapid pace. The world is moving toward great change in culture and lifestyle. Gender equality is becoming common in many places, and girls are achieving heights once thought not possible.

However, even as the world is moving toward progress, the age-old social evil of female infanticide still shows its ugly face in developing countries such as India.

The prevalence of female infanticide in Chellampatty, Madurai, is heartbreaking. No efforts to curb this social evil have succeeded thus far.

However, our Child Survival Program (CSP) has become a powerful instrument of God to change, eradicate and reduce the prevalence of female infanticide and feoticide in this society through adequate postnatal care and effective child development. One particular Child Survival Program doing this is aptly named “Mercy.”

Female infanticide is the intentional killing of girl babies. Even in modern India, some parents long for a male child rather than a female. As a result, they adopt different methods to get rid of baby girls soon after they are born.

Parents normally do not kill the first or second girl child. But the third female child born in the family often is killed. Villagers use every available means to kill an unwanted girl child.

Some babies are given cactus milk that acts as a poison; hot chicken soup is poured into the baby’s mouth; babies are made to lie down on wet sack cloth, and unable to bear the wetness the babies die of fits; at the time of delivery, as the baby comes out from the mother’s womb, the nose and mouth of the baby is deliberately closed for some time until it dies of suffocation, and so on.

The motive behind such a practice is the dowry system, which requires that a bride’s family pay out a great deal of money or property when a female child is married. Thus, for poor families, the birth of a girl child is seen as the beginning of financial downfall and extreme poverty. Also, a family without a male child is considered to be a family without an inheritance.

No sooner than a girl child is born, the parents begin to save money exclusively for the girl to prepare for the large sum of money that has to be spent on her as she grows up.

During puberty, a great feast is traditionally held, inviting friends and relatives. The purpose is to declare that their girl child is fit for marriage. The parents spend a lot of money for this event.

When giving her in marriage, a large sum of money has to be spent again for a dowry. Most often the dowry demanded is much above what the family can afford. As a result, to get their daughter married, parents are forced to borrow the amount, and they have to spend the rest of their lives repaying the amount borrowed.

And the cost of a daughter isn’t over with marriage. The parents are expected to continue spending for their girl child. During the eighth month of their daughter’s pregnancy, they are to hold a grand event, and the first delivery expenses have to be taken care of by them.

The parents are to put ornaments of gold on their grandchild when he or she is born, and they have to bear the expenses of an ear-piercing ceremony, another grand event to which all friends and relatives are invited. Nearly $1,000 to $2,200 is spent on average.

Moreover, whenever there is a death in the family of the girl’s husband, the entire funeral expenses have to be borne by the girl’s parents.

Because of these many financial obligations invited by a birth of a girl child, very little attention is given to girls in the family. They are considered a burden.

Recognizing the need in this area, the staff at the Mercy Child Survival Program are working to save the lives of innocent girl babies.

Initially, they identify pregnant mothers and their families and begin counseling them. The women are encouraged to accept the birth of a girl child. Awareness classes are conducted on various issues, such as family planning, reproduction, child birth, abortion, types of delivery, immunization, communicable diseases and child marriage.

Ramaye and Lakshmi

But beyond advocacy for the babies, there are numerous occasions wherein the staff have intervened and saved the life of a girl child.

A woman named Pandeswari gave birth to twin girls, Ramaye and Lakshmi. Her husband, Muniyandi, works as a sweeper. Pandeswari had one daughter already, so the birth of twin girls disappointed them.

Although determining the gender of a baby before birth is illegal in India, in their town it is still secretly done. As a result, the moment parents come to know it is a girl child, the child is aborted.

In this case, the family wanted to abort the twins in the womb. However, the Child Survival Program staff closely watched over them, counseled them, and protected the babies.

One day, when the Child Survival Program meeting was going on, Kanamma, Pandeswari’s mother-in-law, came to the meeting with her two newborn granddaughters and laid them on the floor. One baby weighed under two pounds and the other weighed 2 1/4 pounds.

Kannamma said very openly to the staff at the Child Survival Program,

“We can’t take care of these two children. If you want to save the children, please help us; otherwise we don’t mind killing them.”

Both babies were enrolled in the Child Survival Program. And now, the girls are in the child sponsorship program.

Amudha with her family

Yet another instance involves a mother called Amudha. She had two daughters. When she conceived for the third time, everyone eagerly expected her to give birth to a boy child. However, even the third time, she bore a girl.

This disappointed everyone in that family as well as in the village. Everybody advised her to kill the baby and wait for another child who might be a boy.

At that time a CSP staff member intervened and counseled the mother and father that female infanticide is a social evil. The family was also promised help through the Child Survival Program.

Now this child, Swathi, is five years old. She is a Compassion-sponsored child.

Another mother who was helped is Radhika. She has two daughters named Adhisaya and Lavanya. When the first daughter was born, the father was not happy.

The second time a daughter was born, Radhika went through several struggles. There were lots of fights and quarreling among the family.

When Radhika conceived for the third time, she moved to her mother’s place in the third month of her pregnancy, fearing that her husband and her in-laws would kill the baby in the womb.

Radhika with her youngest daughter

Radhika’s baby was born and she had another girl, now 20 months old. However, Radhika’s husband has not come to take her back home or to even look at his child.

Her husband says, “I don’t need the girl child.”

The Child Survival Program provides constant support to the little child. All of Radhika’s daughters are with her now. They have lost the love of their father, and because of it, at times Radhika felt that she would end her life.

However, due to the encouragement and support provided by the CSP staff, Radhika and her children have a new lease on life.

Had it not been for the Child Survival Program and your support, today you would find children like Ramaye, Lakshmi and Swathi only in the grave.

The staff of the Mercy Child Survival Program

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Cecilia had no doubt that she’d “make it.” She was full of confidence. She was determined. All of her effort and focus was directed toward the Leadership Development Program. She was celebrated for her bright future, and happiness was a sure thing.

But then she made a choice. She had sex out of wedlock. Cecilia got pregnant, and she’s no longer part of the leadership program. Actions have consequences.

My mom thinks it’s ironic that when her girl most needs compassion, Cecilia gets none. I understand that point of view. But my point of view is that Cecilia didn’t get asked to leave the leadership program because she got pregnant; she was asked to leave because when she joined the program she agreed with its values and promised that her behavior would reflect them.

If Cecilia was married and got pregnant, she’d still be in the program. But that’s not what happened.

The good news is that Cecilia and her boyfriend are in love, and they’re planning to get married. Unlike many of Cecilia’s childhood friends, who didn’t have the opportunity she did and who had babies when they were teenagers, Cecilia has learned skills and developed strong relationships over the 10+ years she was participating in our programs.

Cecilia has not been abandoned. She’s been equipped. She’s been equipped to successfully navigate the challenges that will come throughout her life, including this one.

But let me contrast Cecilia’s situation with what’s happening in my “little brother’s” life right now.

L.B. is growing up in poverty here in America. It’s not the same variety as what Cecilia has lived through or what any of our sponsored children are experiencing, but it’s just as devastating. It doesn’t matter what poverty looks like on the outside because on the inside poverty destroys.

L.B. is 15, and his life mirrors the stereotypical inner city African-American struggle. The day-to-day emotional abuse he receives from this world has brought him to a defining moment in his life.

Last month, he accepted an offer to live with a married couple who were friends of his family and who wanted to invest their time in him. The couple has no children, has been married for more than 10 years, and are closely involved with a community center focused on helping kids in the inner city.

This couple was willing to do something they had never done before, for any kid. They were willing to bring L.B. into their family and to assume legal guardianship for him.

L.B. moved in and agreed to submit himself to their authority and obey their decisions. He was free to leave at any time, but if he made the decision to leave he would not be accepted back.

L.B. agreed. And then as most conflicted people do, he tested the boundaries. He made a conscious decision to disobey, and in anger said he wanted to move out.

The circumstances weren’t quite as sterile as how I’ve portrayed them, and I don’t have all the details, but there was a threat of violence. And it wasn’t the first threat. Actions have consequences.

What should be the consequences for Cecilia and L.B.?

Is it as simple as compassion for Cecilia versus the preservation of integrity for our programs?

Is it as simple as mercy and a second chance for L.B., or does his life have a better chance of being redeemed through justified discipline?

Unlike Cecilia, L.B. doesn’t have the skills or relationships to weather this storm. He hasn’t been equipped … yet.

L.B. isn’t being abandoned by this couple. They will still be involved in his life, just not as his guardians. However, I bet poverty is telling L.B. that he’s being abandoned.

Our ability to take ownership of our actions is a necessary skill in escaping any strain of poverty — physical, emotional or spiritual. Actions have consequences. It’s something God showed us through Adam and Eve.

Thankfully our story didn’t end with the eating of the apple. God meted out justice, but He also had mercy on us. Consequences don’t mean we’re not loved. They usually mean just the opposite.

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It’s chilly and the teacher starts the lesson. As drum beats fill the air, children fill with excitement — the right mood for a story.

Teacher Mercy starts,

“Once upon a time there were two buckets that hung by the Simenya Well. They kept on being drawn by the residents of Simenya. One late afternoon, tired with the day’s work, they took time to rest and spoke to each other.”

At this point Teacher Mercy coughs and holds two buckets as visual aid while pointing them to the children.

In the background, one hears a symphony of coughs and sneezes from the children because of the weather. Her “classroom” is outside.

She continues,

“One of the buckets was always grumbling. It never looked at life cheerfully. On this particular day, as it rested outside the well it said to the other bucket, ‘I am tired of the life we lead. However full we are when we are drawn up out of the well, we are sent back empty again. This makes me disappointed and dissatisfied.’

The second bucket looked at life differently. It did not grumble because it looked at the positive side of life. It said, ‘That’s true, but I always look at it this way — that however empty we are when we are set down, we are always full when draw up.’”

Teacher Mercy declares the end of the story, looks at the children, sees the cloudy skies, and whispers a prayer to God, “Please Lord, help us build classrooms to house these children.”

For the last three years, trees randomly placed in the Simenya Child Development Center church compound have been serving as “classrooms” for the children. Unfortunately the days can be nightmares for some of the children in the center, especially when they come to the wall-less classrooms, during extreme weather conditions.

According to Mercy,

“The long rainy seasons fall in March to May, while the short rainy seasons are during the months of August to September and sometimes trickle into October.

These are dreaded months by children, teachers and parents alike. One is likely to meet children shivering in the chilly days with hands tightly clasped across their chest, to preserve the little body temperature.

It is during this period, we have seen children affected by periodic fever. These are the times when we see children walk out of class or even stay away from the classes, with parents citing fear of fever attack.”

During the hot season months, we have not been spared either. This area has characteristic dry spells, which leaves the indigenous trees without leaves. Scorching sunbeams through the sketchy branches penetrate the out-door classes. Because of this, Simenya Child Development Center has made numerous efforts to address this immense challenge.

The community is aware that infrastructural development is their responsibility; however, with the ravaging rate of poverty in this community and high cost of living, they are not able to save money for this much-needed infrastructure.

The host church organized a community fundraiser (harambee), and approximately $400 was raised, which was used toward the acquisition of corrugated iron sheets as roofing materials for a semi-permanent make-shift structure built with trees.

In July 2008, God remembered Simenya Child Development Center in the form of a surprise gift for the center. It came from John, Benson’s sponsor, and it came at an opportune time.

According to Mercy,

“The contribution enabled us to come up with with capacity for 70 children. Though a two-roomed class, the construction has been made in a way that the middle partition can be opened up and the building turned to a hall for church or student center events and functions. Even the church partner hosts a few meetings in this new facility, courtesy of John of the UK.”

Benson is proud of his sponsor, who not only touched his life, but those of 70 children. However, some 230 others still learn in a nearby church hall, while others learn in the child development center director’s office. And more are still under the trees in the church compound until classes are built.

Benson is now a very happy boy. He is glad for the program he attends because he has access to his basic necessities, including a new classroom. He says that he cannot attribute any of this to anyone but to God. Despite being an orphan, Benson is looking at the brighter side of life, he hopes to pursue a good education and he confesses,

“God has given me a friend (his sponsor) who will take me to school until I become a teacher which is my dream career. I now believe Jeremiah 29:11. God indeed knows the plans he has for me to give me peace and an expected end. Even when society thought I was nothing, God and my sponsor saw me as someone.”

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“I realized that if I do not do something we could lose Victoria…I have not regretted even though things are not too good economically. I get so satisfied just looking at how beautifully she is growing.”

Mercy sells fish and her husband is a fisherman. Life is not easy. Things would have been much more difficult but for the intervention of Compassion International through the Glory Assemblies of God Child Development Center.

“There was no way I could enroll [the children] into any school but for Compassion. My prayer every day is for the work of Compassion International to flourish in the life of these children; so that they too will be in a position to sponsor some needy children when they grow up. God bless you sponsors; may everything you do be blessed; thank you Compassion.”

Victoria goes to school during the week and spends eight hours at the child development center every Saturday.

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