Bittersweet: Fruit trees save girls' lives
 

An Indian village plants fruit trees when a girl is born to provide for their future dowry and marriage costs, and so prevent female foeticide and dowry death which are hignest in that region of India.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/sou...a/10204759.stm

"The whole world should emulate us and plant more trees," says their father Prabhu Dayal Singh.

or maybe not. Trees good. Reason for planting good. Reason for reason for planting BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD.

Whilst this process saves lives by providing money for the girls, it does nothing to make girls' lives more valuable, which would be the miracle solution. When all the other villages catch on and ll girls have fruit money for dowries, the dowries will go up and these girls will be in no better situation.

So... bittersweet.

A band-aid on a gash that will probably never heal, but I live in hope.

And yes, I know it's not my place to project my values onto other cultures. But I'm human. Bite me. ;)

Plant another tree to provide for her education. Then she becomes a valuable member of society on her own.

right. except that that's not whats going to happen in most cases. You may be the exception, but in most cultures educated women are not valued as much as educated men.

Interesting. So often we plant trees only when people die. At least around here.

use the dowry money to build schools and pay for teachers, I say.

Overall if this practice is universalized the price of the fruit trees should fall because of supply and demand.


Dowries because women are clearly objects to be bought.
(IMHO)

It's worse than that; the dowry isn't to buy them. The dowry is payment to the groom for taking the daughter off the parents' hands. They are worth less than nothing.