India declares 2008-2018 'Decade of the Girl Child'

New Delhi, Mar 8 (UNI) India today declared the next ten years the 'Decade of the Survival of the Girl Child' and sounded a red alert to prevent killing of girls in their mother's wombs on International Women's Day.

Ten million girl children have ''disappeared'' in the past two decades in India after foeticide by families who did not want girl children, the government said as the nation celebrated the Women's Day.

''We are on a red alert from now on,'' Union Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Chaudhury told a news conference. ''The girl child today is an endangered species than the 'chiru' from which we make expensive shawls and the lion and the tiger we hunt.'' The years 2008-2018 will be observed as the 'Decade of the Survival of the Girl Child' to achieve complete reversal of the present trend, which has seen the population of women decline in several states, including the national capital, Ms Chaudhury said.

''We are not so much celebrating the day as every year half-a-million girl children are prevented from being born in our country,'' she said.

The final touches are being given for a National Commission on Protection of Child Rights, which is expected to be constituted in a few months.

The aim of the government is to educate, employ and empower women so that they could stand up, speak and make their voice heard.

Various schemes of the government will see changes in the coming months and the corporate sector will be asked to share the responsibility.

A poster calling for equality of women in the society was released on the day by the Women and Child Development Ministry and the United Nations Development Programme.

UNI FZ MA ND1906