International models participate in campaign against female foeticide in India

Holding placards, 25 models of different nationalities gathered at Jantar Mantar in Delhi on Tuesday as part of a campaign against female foeticide organised by a Haryana-based talent management agency, Rubaru. 

Displaying a placard that read “don’t suffer in silence”, Maitri Monali Pradhan, a 19-year-old participant from Orissa, representing India in the pageant, shouted “beti bachao beti padhao” which literally means “save girl child, educate girl child”, in unison with models from various countries including Kenya, Netherlands, Sri Lanka and Russia.

 “This concept is new for these international models but they are trying to understand it and create awareness about it,” said Pradhan. 

Pradhan said that women not just in India but across the world face different forms of atrocities and crimes, and the group has been campaigning for women’s empowerment. “We want to create an impact against any kind of harassment of women,” she said. 

The campaign also focused on issues like domestic violence and other crimes against women in India.

Leila Onyeagbako, a Dutch national and national director of the Netherlands-based Miss Supermodel Worldwide, said women have more to offer than just outer beauty. “All the models feel strongly about it (the campaign). They connect to it as many of them have had similar experiences,” she said. 

Onyeagbako said that the objective of the campaign was to let women know that they should be open to listening to other women and guiding them. “Your neighbour has almost the same story as you. A lot of women suffer in silence because they are afraid,” she said. “We need to break this cycle.” 

Activists have often raised an alarm over the deteriorating living condition for women in India. According to an analysis by the Pew Research Centre, a Washington-based non-profit, at least 9 million girls are ‘missing’ in India as a result of female infanticide from 2000 to 2019. This, incidentally, is just slightly lower than the entire population of Uttarakhand.

A research study by BioMed Central (BMC) Women’s Health, analysing trends and lessons on domestic violence faced by Indian women from 2001 to 2018, recently highlighted that India needs to focus on efforts to reduce the gaps in the administrative data which includes underreporting and almost stagnant data over time, reported The Indian Express. 

Between 2001 and 2018, a majority of the domestic violence cases were filed under ‘cruelty by husband or his relatives', with the reported rate of this crime increasing by 53 per cent over 18 years.

The study has also highlighted that the rate of cases of cruelty by husbands or relatives was 28.3 per 1,00,000 women in 2018, which is an increase of 53 per cent from 2001. The rate of reported dowry deaths and abetment to suicide was 2 per cent and 1.4 per cent, respectively, in 2018. 

Sandeep Kumar, the founder of Rubaru and the organiser of the campaign, said that he decided to organise the event as the crimes against women in his birthplace, Haryana is alarmingly high. As per the NCRB report, in Haryana, crime against women cases rose by 27 per cent, from 13,000 in 2020 to 16,658 cases in 2021.

"I have seen my own relatives wish to not have girl children when someone would be pregnant. I even saw people confirming where they could get an ultrasonography done,” said Kumar (35). “People will understand that if women from all these countries are campaigning to stop these crimes, then they must stop.“