Aliens in Our Own Land: Persecution of Christians and Western Indifference - Dwayne Ryan Menezes

Can Christians ever be victims of genocide? asks Professor Mark Movesesian over at First Things magazine. Not only President Obama and his people, but also Condoleeza Rice and policy elites more widely seem to have a blind spot when it comes to the world's most persecuted major religion. Nina Shea of the Hudson Institute reported that Rice's response to her attempts to draw the attention of the Bush Administration to the plight of Iraq's Christians was that assistance to Christians by the United States would appear sectarian. Britain's failure to defend the persecuted Christians in the Middle East has also been shameful.

When I posted a link to Movesesian's article on my Facebook page, my friend Dwayne Ryan Menezes, who is a director of the new London think tank, Human Security Centre and head of its Religion and Politics division, responded with this deeply moving and personal comment.  Dr. Menezes' research interests are in Christianity in the non-Western world and Christians from the non-Western world in the West. Here he tells a story, too little understood in the West, about the meaning for Christians in many lands beyond the West of the embarrassed silence of Christians in face of anti-Christian persecution.  It is a hostile, politically correct multiculturalism that is as insensitive as possible to persecuted minorities where these do not fit the dominant narrative.

This postmodern secularist pose of Western elites approves of every culture but its own, and values, in the name of diversity, every religion except those at the heart of its own culture and civilization, Christianity and Judaism. What Dwayne experienced in India, where he was born into a Catholic family of Indo-Portuguese descent, was rejection as a living reminder of empire, an attitude mirrored in the post-Christian, anti-Christian West, where he and others like him saw no support. "All we  saw was the post-Christian garb of the West, a cultural hemisphere where Christians had been crushed into silence, embarrassment or apathy."

Here are his observations:

Aliens in Our Own Land: Persecution of Christians and Western Indifference

by Dwayne Ryan Menezes

The fear of 'appearing sectarian' or 'showing favouritism' is the poorest, the weakest and the most appalling excuse for not speaking up for a persecuted group in a distant land that happen to share your beliefs.

During the wave of intensified persecution of Christians in India in 2008, I had to head to Ottawa and Washington to get people to even listen to my concerns. It was only later - once the overseas Indian Christian diaspora was mobilised into action - that the West took some notice.

I shall never forget how despondent and frustrated I used to feel as the sole Christian in my school in India for 10 years. Throughout my childhood, you were accepted, but only to a point, and only so long as you surrendered to the expectations of the majority on the minority.

I shall never forget how it felt to be treated as an alien in one's own land, where I was expected to defend everything the West did as if being Christian made me its Ambassador, all while the same West appeared so removed from my plight, so beyond my reach, and so embarrassed and reluctant to come to my defence.

I will never forget the year 1999. I was 14 when the Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two boys were burned alive by a mob of 50 or so in Manoharpur, Orissa, while they were sleeping in their vehicle. His two boys - Philip (10) and Timothy (6) - were only a few years younger than me. I saw them in my dreams that night, their little hands tapping the window of their locked vehicle, summoning me to do something.

I remember the pain and confusion I felt in my 14-year-old heart when I saw people celebrating their demise and warning other Christians that the same fate would befall them. I remember some of my best friends remarking scornfully the next day, "You've still gone back to school? Haven't you learnt a lesson? Why don't you go back to Rome or London or Lisbon, wherever it is that you come from?"

I would have left, had I happened to have come from any of those places, but what could I do as one born into a Roman Catholic family in India of Indo-Portuguese descent? The West didn't want me, if at all they knew "my kind" existed. The Indians didn't want me, for they saw "my kind", quite literally, as the last, but living, vestiges of the empire. There I was: an alien in every land, a stranger to every people.

Perhaps there were people (like yourself) and organisations (like Christian Solidarity Worldwide) then who did indeed stand up for Christians like me, but how was I - a child born in distant India - supposed to know? All we saw was the post-Christian garb of the West, a cultural hemisphere where Christians had been crushed into silence, embarrassment or apathy.

If you are born a Muslim in India, you can at least tap into some sort of transnational Muslim community that is visibly and vocally attentive to your concerns. If someone in Denmark publishes a cartoon that Muslims find offensive, Muslims in lands as far as India will rise up in uproar. There is a sense of collective honour and collective responsibility, at least within some transnational sectarian communities.

We must not stigmatise Muslims for their transnational and trans-ethnic solidarity; we must learn from their example. We must put Christian teachings into practice, see (and not just call) ourselves a global 'community of the faithful', have a sense of transnational solidarity and responsibility, and set a 'Christian' example of how to respond to the challenges the most vulnerable among us face: a response borne in dignity, peace, love and humility.

It’s a girl: The three deadliest words in the world

Evan Grae Davis | Tuesday, 30 July 2013

An estimated 200 million girls are missing. How can the world community stand by and allow gendercide to continue? asks the maker of a documentary film on this scandal.

t's a Girl Documentary Film - Official Trai

The United Nations estimates that as many as 200 million girls are missing today, the majority from India and China. What are the cultural patterns and individual stories behind this shocking statistic? Evan Grae Davis, an American who has extensive experience in the developing world, has produced a documentary film that answers this question through the mouths of women immersed in these cultures and activists who are campaigning for them. In this email interview with MercatorNet he explained how he came to make the film and what needs to happen next.

*****

MercatorNet: This is a very harrowing film. How did you come to make it?

Evan Grae Davis: I have spent the last nearly two decades travelling the world capturing stories of human need for humanitarian aid and development NGO's and non-profits. Throughout this time I witnessed a lot of injustice. I began asking the question, what are the cultural roots and mindsets that allow for human rights violations on the scale seen throughout the world today? I set out to explore this question through a documentary film. I and the team travelled to nine nations capturing stories for this film. One of the nations we visited was India, hoping to understand how the subjugation and devaluation of women could be justified by the deeply established son-preference culture. 

What we discovered while filming in India about the epidemic of missing girls and dramatically skewed sex ratios and related abuse and neglect of girls was a game-changer for us. After hearing the UN statistic of as many as 200 million girls missing in the world today as a result of 'gendercide' we researched the issue in China, as well, and were completely astonished by how few people seemed to be aware of what appeared to be the greatest human rights issue of our time, and certainly the greatest form of violence against women in the world today. There seemed to be very little out there on the topic. It was then that we determined to dedicate the film project to exposing this untold story and educating and mobilizing a movement to end gendercide in India and China.

What practices contributing to gendercide did you look into?

In the film, we explore the fundamental son-preference mindset that underlies gendercide. In cultures like India and China, the preference for sons is driven by centuries-old traditions that say that boys are more valuable than girls. Only sons carry on the family name and inherit wealth or perform the last rites for parents upon their death. Daughters join their husband's family once married and are no longer considered a part of their family of origin.

In India, the preference for sons is further influenced by the dowry system, where families often must pay large sums of money or give gold, land and other family assets to the husband’s family when their daughters marry. The cost of securing husbands for daughters becomes prohibitive, so families avoid having more than one or, at most, two daughters.

In China, the One Child Policy has contributed to the elimination of millions of girls over the past few decades. Sons care for their parents in old age, and daughters leave their family to join their husband's family, as in India. So if a family is only allowed one child, they are determined to identify the sex of each pregnancy and systematically terminate female fetuses until they bear a son.

Perhaps the most shocking testimony in your film comes from an Indian woman who killed eight daughters – and seems matter-of-fact about it. You interviewed this woman personally – did you understand, in the end, how she could do that? What light does her case throw on the whole problem in India?

Finding myself standing at the edge of a field in Southern India, listening to a mother share how she had personally strangled eight of her own newborn daughters in her quest for a son, was by far the most shocking and difficult interview. She shared so matter-of-factly, often smiling or laughing, as she talked about how she couldn't afford to raise daughters and made statements like, "Women have the power to give life and the power to take it away."

Later in the interview, she shared a song about her plight as a woman and the pain of being given in an arranged marriage at a young age. She told us how when she was 15, she was excelling in school and had high hopes for her future, when it was decided that she was to be given as a second wife to her sister's husband because her sister was unable to have children. Her purpose in life was to bear her husband a son.

This was when gendercide took on a whole new meaning for me, because I realized she was simply a product of the culture in which she lives. She was programmed from birth to accept certain traditional views about her value and roles as a woman. These deeply engrained cultural beliefs drive the entire system, and women often find themselves as the perpetrators, visiting the same violence they experienced upon their daughters and daughters-in-law.

Was it difficult to get testimonies from women at the grassroots who confront this problem directly? Who helped you reach them?

As American filmmakers, we couldn’t just show up and ask women to talk about the devaluation of women and killing of girls. So we connected with local, grassroots NGO's and advocates who had established relationships in their communities. They introduced us to women who were willing to share their stories with us. For instance, the Jesus Mercy Home Association took us to a few communities in Tamil Nadu, including the one where the mother who strangled eight daughters lived. And the team at the Centre for Social Research in Delhi took us to visit several of their community outreach programmes in Delhi and Haryana. Women's Rights in China helped is with some of the Chinese stories, along with other organizations there. The film would absolutely not have been possible without the work and support of these grassroots organizations and we are immensely grateful for their years of work in the field that enabled such open communication.

All of these field partners were careful about the privacy and safety of the women they work with, and we had to inquire in each case as to whether they were willing to share their stories or not. To our surprise, in India, many of the women and families were open to sharing their stories without shame or embarrassment. This seemed to indicate to us how deeply engrained some of these cultural beliefs were.

The one-child policy in China makes the situation somewhat different there, but do women buy into it to the same extent? Did you find that people accepted the policy, or not?

The impression I have received from talking to activists and those who are working to end gendercide in China is that the coercive and oppressive nature of the One Child Policy makes it extremely unpopular among Chinese women. However, they have very little choice but to silently endure the government's intrusion into their private lives and have little recourse against the Family Planning officials' dominance of their reproductive rights. Those who voice dissension or refuse to submit to the policy suffer harsh punishment, along with their family members.

India is a democratic and religious country, whereas China, officially, is not. Does India therefore have a better chance of breaking with this horrendous war on girls?

Religion in India impacts gendercide only in as much as some religious communities like Muslims and Christians do not practice female feticide and infanticide on the same level as Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs. However, the deeply engrained patriarchal son preference culture permeates India and the devaluation of women remains widespread regardless of religious persuasion.

One would think the democratic nature of India's government would lead to progress in women's empowerment. But despite a significant number of women in upper level government positions as well as one third of local government seats being filled by women, violence against women in India is worse than ever.

Government, whether in India or China, will only be a part of the solution if they have the political will to do so, and this is not the case in either nation at this time. When the Chinese government developed the political will to end foot-binding in China, the practice was effectively eliminated within a generation.

Both nations need government action, but in different ways.  China must end its coercive family planning policy, whereas India’s government must be pressured to enforce its existing laws against dowry, sex selection and infanticide.

You have expressed the hope that your film will help inspire a world movement to end gendercide. What specific goals does this movement need to address?

The first goal of the movement is to raise the level of awareness about gendercide throughout the world. We encourage anyone who desires to see value and dignity restored to girls in India and China to spread the word about the issue and our film with your friends and family, through Facebook and Twitter, and by bringing the film to your community through hosting a screening. You may learn more about how to spread the word or host a screening on our website at www.itsagirlmovie.com. 

As more people learn about the issue, our hope is to mobilize them to action. There are many ways to get involved, whether by signing our petitions asking world leaders demand an end to gendercide in India and China, or supporting our partners who are working on the ground to save girls and advocate for women's rights in India and China. Again, those interested can find out more on our action page on the website.

To date we have mobilized nearly half a million people to take action. Imagine if we had tens of millions demanding the governments of India and China provide justice and equality to girls and women suffering gendercide, and demanding world leaders require accountability for this massive human rights violation.

In a BBC programme on this issue an Indian speaker pointed out that the West is deeply implicated in gendercide because of its promotion of population control in India and China – and elsewhere – and acceptance of abortion as a method of birth control. Isn’t this a major obstacle to any positive role Western political pressure might play?

It is true that the gender imbalance in India, China and other nations in Asia was fuelled by pressure from Western governments and NGOs for population control, which in many cases exploited existing cultural preference for sons for the “greater good” of population control. Learn more about this in Mara Hvistendahl’s excellent book, Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men.

And although the sex ratios in Western nations are not as extreme as in India or China, gendercide does take place in all countries in the West to a varying degree. In particular, some studies have shown that Asian immigrant communities in the West have similar sex ratios to that of their home nations, indicating that gendercide (and in particular, sex selection) may be happening at a similar rate among immigrant communities. Canada, New Zealand, Australia and most countries in Western Europe prohibit abortion on the basis of a fetus’ gender -- the one notable exception being the United States.

These are all relevant questions that, I am sure, do impact on the positive roles the West can have in bringing pressure to bear towards the goal of ending gendercide.

Evan Grae Davis spent the last nearly two decades traveling the world capturing stories of human need for humanitarian aid and development NGO's and non-profits. He is the director of the film, It’s a girl. For more information visit www.itsagirlmovie.com

This article was first published by Evan Grae Davis and MercatorNet.com under a Creative Commons licence. You may republish it or translate it free of charge with attribution for non-commercial purposes following these guidelines. If you teach at a university we ask that your department make a donation. Commercial media must contact us for permission and fees. Some articles on this site are published under different terms.

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It's a Girl - The Vast Scale of Gendercide

Working to End Gendercide in India

The Rhema Project

Marcus Roberts | 25 May 2012 | 

After last week’s post about female infanticide and foeticide in India I received some information via email (Marcus.roberts@mercatornet.com) about The Rhema Project. This NGO is on the ground in India and is seeking to change attitudes towards the Indian girl child.  In its own words:

“The mission of The Rhema Project is to eliminate female infanticide, sex determination feticide and other discriminations against the girl child in India by supporting and networking with organizations and indigenous groups. We strive to add value to female lives in India through the short-term rescue of unborn, newborn and the Indian girl child as well as long-term initiatives that include education, health and wellness, trade and micro-finance to help Indian women become truly valued by their culture.”

I suggest heading over to the website and having a look at the amazing work that The Rhema Project is doing. But for a brief taste, here is a project that The Rhema Project is currently involved in (as described by its director, Dan Blacketor):

“Our organization has been working in Tamil Nadu.  Two years ago we launched a very simple program that we refer to as our "Prenatal and Newborn Care" initiative.  Simply, the program identifies communities with a high rate of gendercide and;

1.  Begins to provide all pregnant woman a daily milk (1/2 liter) allotment.  Our indigenous staff simply begins to build relationships with the families.
2.  Each week the women receive vitamin supplements to help improve the health of mother and fetus.
3.  Once a month the group of women are taken to a clinic or hospital for an exam (not a ultrasound).  While returning to the village we take the women out to lunch at an Indian restaurant.  This demonstrates value to the pregnant woman as well as helps build community among the women.
4.  Once the baby is born we celebrate the birth of a girl with small gifts and a blessing.  We do not do this for boy babies since the family and community already celebrate his birth and life.
5.  Families with girl babies are allowed to continue to participate in the daily milk (1 liter) and vitamin allotment for an additional six months.
6.  We celebrate the girl babies first birth with a small gift to the baby and family.

Most times we precede this program with a community project that will benefit all.  Many times this is the drilling of a bore-well.  All have access.

What we have experienced is a reduction of mortality rates of girl babies by over 90% within 12 to 18 months after the program has been started.  Amazingly, nearly 80% of the birth families decide to keep their girl baby and raise her.  For those families unwilling or unable to care for a girl baby we simply identify a family that are willing to care for her and provide them a small monthly stipend to cover the additional costs of raising another child.

In several villages, the women of the village have actually taken over the responsibilities of this program and we have seen midwifes move from executioner to advocate for the girl babies born in the community.”

While we can pontificate all we like about the problems of the world (and I must admit I like it more than I should) people like those involved in The Rhema Project are the ones actually changing things. They are the ones who save lives, change attitudes and make this world a better place. They need and deserve our support. We should give it to them. May their project be a fruitful and successful one. As we (sometimes) say in New Zealand, “kia kaha!”


From MercatorNet, May 25, 2012

Intrinsically Evil

Gendercide Recognition
Marcus Roberts | 15 Jun 2011 |

At the beginning of this month, Members of the US Congress, demographers and representatives from human rights organizations got together in Washington DC to “launch an effort to end the gendercide of girls”. The humanitarian organization All Girls Allowed (its website is http://www.allgirlsallowed.org/) hosted a film showing and press conference, demographers presented research to Member of Congress showing the link between war and a “male youth bulge” (something we've covered on this blog here), while the economic, trade and currency valuation implications of such a gender imbalance in India and China were discussed.

The point of all of this was to “proclaim one truth that everyone agrees on: Gendercide – the systemic elimination of a particular gender – is wrong.”

I would hope that everyone agrees with that statement, especially when one remembers the worrying facts about China’s and India’s gender imbalances. In China the at-birth gender ratio of boys to girls has increased from 106:100 in 1979 to 120:100 today, largely as a result of the one-child policy. There are now 37 million more men than women in China according to government figures. In India the problem is just as serious as cultural preferences for boys see both the abortion of female fetuses and the neglect and killing of baby girls that were lucky enough to survive the womb.

However, this is not just a problem in the world’s two most populous nations. According to the book Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men, by Beijing-based journalist Mara Hvistendahl, this is a problem that extends throughout South and Central Asia and into the Caucuses. Indeed, according to Hvistendahl, by now Asia as a whole is “missing” 163 million females – an immense number.

I would have thought that these numbers, these statistics and the mere fact that parents are killing their children on the basis of that child's sex (due to cultural, financial or governmental pressure) would be horrific enough to not need any further arguments to justify speaking out against it. That is why I thought it was a little sad that Chai Ling, the founder of All Girls Allowed felt that she had to include the following argument to bolster her case:
"It's important for world leaders to see gendercide is not just a women's rights issue, but it also leads to trade imbalance, insecurity and a threat to peace" .

I am sure that that is all true, but shouldn't the argument simply be: gendercide is wrong because female babies (born and unborn) are either being killed or left to die! Full stop. Quod erat demonstrandum. Surely world leaders should not then ask: "Yes, but what are the likely outcomes of this?"

Some things are wrong not because of their consequences, but because they intrinsically are wrong. Gendercide is one of those things. Thus, gendercide will be wrong even if you think its consequences are good, perhaps because it is furthering China's one child policy and helping to curb China's (and the world's) population. If world leaders cannot see that, and will only agree that it is wrong because its consequences are undesirable, then that is a very worrying state of affairs indeed.

Retrieved June 15, 2011 from http://www.mercatornet.com/demography/view/9266/

India's Five Million Missing Girls

Discussing preliminary data from the decennial census in India, National Catholic Register correspondent in Bangalore, Anto Akkara, explains:

More than 5 million girls have gone missing in a decade, as per the 2011 census estimates — compared to the data from the 2001 national census.

Even the news about the increase in the gender ratio, from 933 to 940 females per 1,000 men, got drowned in the alarming decline in the number of girls under 6 years: from 927 to 914 per 1,000 boys. In some states, that ratio went below 800 girls per 1,000 boys.

The numbers cannot be explained as a preference for boys in backward areas resulting from the economic conditions of rural life. Female feticide is actually more prevalent among the better educated and urban population.

The census figures showed that while the child ratio in rural areas is 918 girls per 1,000 boys, the figure is 904 girls per 1,000 boys in cities and urban areas.

“It is sad that people are using their education to get rid of the girl child instead of getting rid of their prejudices,” said Cardinal Gracias. [Cardinal Oswald Gracias, Archbishop of Mumbai, is president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India.]

Prospective parents often conduct illegal testing of the sex of the child during pregnancy and abort if the embryo is a girl due to deep-rooted gender prejudice in India.

Akkara explains the roots of the preference for boys in this way:

The preference for boys, according to Akkara,

is rooted in the belief that one cannot attain moksha (liberation) unless he has a son to perform his last rites, as mandated by Hindu sacred writings.

This belief traditionally rendered the girl child unwanted and paved the way for the dowry system that has reduced her to a “liability” for the family. Worried about dowry burdens, couples often abort the second pregnancy if the fetus is a girl.

In some northern states, there are fewer than 800 girls per 1,000 boys. The proportions are much more balanced in states like Kerala where Christians are more numerous and Christian education more widespread, but Christians still only account for 2.3% of India’s population. Three-fourths of the nearly 15 million students on the rolls of 20,000 Catholic educational institutions are non-Christians.

*In the picture above, girls get a good night blessing from Loreto Sister Cyril Mooney at the Rainbow Home in Kolkata, India, Feb. 11. Rainbow Home is a care and schooling program started by Sister Mooney for the orphans and street girls.

For Akkara's full report, go to National Catholic Register at http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/female-feticide/

Commercial surrogacy in India: A $2 billion industry

The sleazier side of assisted reproductive technology, the world of IVF, renting of poor women's wombs, and the separation of reproduction from love and marriage, and even sex. "The Confederation of Indian Industryhas predicted that surrogacy will be a gigantic US$2.3 billion industry by 2012. This is becoming an increasingly familiar statistic. But what is life like for a surrogate mother? An article in the University of Chicago feminist journal Signs is an in-depth investigation of the recruitment and life of surrogates. Author Amrita Pande did fieldwork in the town of Anand, in Gujarat, between 2006 and 2008. She interviewed 42 surrogates, their husbands and in-laws, 8 intending parents, 2 doctors, and 2 surrogacy brokers." Michael Cook, Bioedge.

"They are just the wombs"
by Gina Maranto, Biopolitical Times guest contributor
December 6th, 2010

Since its legalization in 2002, commercial surrogacy in India has grown into a multimillion-dollar industry, drawing couples from around the world. IVF procedures in the unregulated Indian clinics generally cost a fraction of what they would in Europe or the U.S., with surrogacy as little as one-tenth the price. Mainstream press reports in English-language publications occasionally devote a line or two to the ethical implications of using poor women as surrogates, but with few exceptions, these women's voices have not been heard.

Sociologist Amrita Pande of the University of Cape Town set out to speak directly with the “workers” to see how they are affected by such “work.” In her multi-year project, Pande has expanded the cultural perspective on international reproductive tourism, delineated its “structural reality, with real actors and real consequences,” and provided an intimate look at the lot of women serving as commercial surrogates at Hope Maternity Clinic in Anand, a thriving city in India’s westernmost state, Gujarat.

By 2006, Anand was gaining a reputation as a center for reproductive services, and Pande began conducting fieldwork at a clinic there run by Dr. Usha Khanderia. Khanderia was not only performing IVF procedures, but matching infertile couples from larger cities like Mumbai, or from other countries, with surrogates, nearly all from nearby agricultural villages. Pande’s in-depth, open-ended interviews with dozens of surrogates and their family members confirmed that the chief motive was economic: 34 out of 42 had family incomes at or below the national poverty line. Some surrogates said their husbands had persuaded or coerced them into undertaking pregnancy-for-pay. The fee, for most of these women, was equal to roughly five times their normal annual household income.

All but one woman in the group had “decided to keep their surrogacy a secret from their communities, villages, and very often, from their parents,” Pande writes in “Not an ‘Angel’, not a ‘Whore,’” published in the Indian Journal of Gender Studies [subscription only] in 2009. Surrogacy is highly stigmatized in India, in part because it “involves the bodies of poor women.” Moreover, “many Indians equate surrogacy with sex work,” mistakenly believing intercourse is involved. Too, “getting pregnant for money...is associated with the ‘immoral’ commercialization of motherhood.”

Accordingly, during the course of their pregnancies, the women working for Hope leave their homes to reside in hostels near the main clinic or on two of its upper floors, there occupying rooms “lined with 8-10 single iron beds with barely enough space to walk between.” In the clinic, the women “have nothing to do the whole day except pace up and down on the same floor (they are not allowed to climb the stairs and must wait for the nurses to operate the elevator), share their woes and experiences with the other surrogates and wait for the next injection.” At the hostels, there is greater freedom of movement: the women have access to a kitchen and can be visited by their husbands.

In the women’s narratives regarding their experience, Pande traces “resistances” to their stigmatized condition. Many endeavor to enhance their self-esteem through moral comparisons. For example, they are at pains to draw boundaries between themselves and prostitutes and to distinguish their actions from those of women who put their biological children up for adoption. What they are doing - giving a child to a couple who will provide it with a good home - is not the same as “giving away our own child,” which is far less moral. At the same time, many of the women seek to emphasize their husbands’ “high morality” and “generosity” in having allowed them to be surrogates. Ultimately, however, Pande sees their narratives as “eroding [their] recognition of the significant role they play as workers and breadwinners for their family.”

In the end, the women themselves do not view surrogacy as a form of legitimate labor (Pande notes the dual implications of the term in this context), rather as a choice forced upon them by economic dire straits. Says Salma [not her real name], a 25-year-old Muslim housewife with a middle school education, “This is not work, this is majboori (a compulsion)....This work is not ethical - it’s just something we have to do to survive.”

But, Pande writes,

Economic desperation does not make a perfect surrogate; a new subject has to be produced, a surrogate who is a willing worker and, simultaneously, a virtuous mother. The surrogate is expected to be a discipline contract worker who will give the baby away immediately after delivery without creating a fuss. But she is simultaneously expected to be a nurturing mother attached to the baby and a selfless mother who will not treat surrogacy like a business. This mother-worker combination is produced through a disciplinary project that deploys the power of language [in the form of the surrogacy contract and the discourses deployed by medical staff] along with a meticulous control over the body of the surrogate.

As one physician at the clinic explains, “We make sure the surrogates know that they are not genetically related to the baby, they are just the wombs.” At the same time, clinic staff and matrons endeavor to downplay the commercial aspects of the enterprise, praising surrogates alternately for altruism or for their luck in having received a gift from God in the form of money for “renting their womb.”

Pande, in an article in the Summer 2010 issue of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society [subscription only], probes the strategies used by clinics and their brokers to enlist potential surrogates and to ensure that they do not attempt to negotiate higher wages with clients or violate the terms of their contract. One broker worked at an abortion clinic and drafted impoverished women who had undergone abortions because they could not afford another child. Other brokers preyed upon women’s fears of being “bad mothers - mothers who were unable to provide for their children or, especially, mothers who could not get their daughters married on time” for lack of money for the dowry.

Although “The Assisted Reproductive Technologies (Regulation) Bill,” drafted this year by the Indian Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, would supposedly ban such recruitment efforts, the bill’s language is sufficiently vague concerning advertising and “local guardians” that clinics are likely to find workarounds. In an August 6, 2010 post about the bill, Gauri, a non-resident Indian physican who blogs at beinformed notes, “Most of the rules proposed by the new Indian law seem to be directed at only making the process just run smoother, rather than making it harder for non-Indians to use Indian women to incubate their babies.”

Indeed, reproductive tourism to India is unlikely to diminish, and the Confederation of Indian Industry has predicted that surrogacy will generate revenues of $2.3 billion by 2012. Amit Sengupta, in “Medical Tourism: Reverse Subsidy for the Elite,” in the Winter 2010 issue of Signs, explains how the “virtual collapse” of India’s public health system in the last five years has led to the untrammeled growth of the for-profit sector, supported by tax breaks and direct and indirect government subsidies. The Indian government has built medical tourism into its National Health Policy, which “strongly encourages” medical providers to seek foreign clients.

Sengupta, a health analyst who is associate coordinator for the People’s Health Movement, points out the unfortunate irony that “while women from across the world flock to India to take advantage of the booming market for assisted reproductive technologies, a very large number of Indian women are denied basic health care. Women are truly invisible to the public health system in the country - the latest available data indicate that just 17.3 percent of women have had any contact with a health worker.”

Sources:
• Pande Amrita, 2010. “Commercial Surrogacy in India: Manufacturing a Perfect ‘Mother-Worker,’”, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Vol. 35, No. 4, 969-992.
• -----------------, 2009. “Not an `Angel,' Not a `Whore:' Surrogates as `Dirty' Workers in India,” Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Vol. 16, No. 2, 141-173.
• Sengupta, Amit, 2011. “Medical Tourism: Reverse Subsidy for the Elite,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Vol. 36, No. 2, 312-318.
Gina Maranto directs the English Composition program at the University of Miami and is interim director of the graduate program at its Leonard and Jayne Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy. She is the author of Quest for Perfection: The Drive to Breed Better Human Beings (1996).

Previously on Biopolitical Times:
• Outsourcing Pregnancy: Surrogacy as "Emotional Labor"
• Reproductive Tourism: Surrogacy Outsourcing Takes Hold in Guatemala
• Struggling to Control Fertility Tourism
• Egg Raffles and Shadow Markets: The Fertility Industry Goes Global - and Skirts Laws
Retrieved December 10, 2010 from http://www.biopoliticaltimes.org/article.php?id=5497