Rakshita - A Girl Safety Committee in Nalgonda

Nalgonda, March 09: On the occasion of International Women's Day, The officials of Nalgonda District has conducted a survey as part of newly-launched Rakshita, a girl safety committee, threw up startling revelations about female infanticide in the last four years in Nalgonda district on Tuesday.

There have been 14 cases of female infanticide including 10 concealments of girl child births and disposal of their bodies secretly.

An official of Nalgonda police department, which formed Rakshita, said that in the last six years 29 cases of infanticide, foeticide, abandonment, concealment of births by disposing the bodies, buying and selling of minor girls, medical termination of pregnancy (MTP) were reported.

"This shows the existence of the deep-rooted social evil even now. If all departments are not involved in eradicating this problem, it will not be solved permanently.

As part of the initiative to protect girl children (prevent female foeticide/infanticide / sale of girl child), officials from all departments came together and formed Rakshitha," Nalgonda superintendent of police N Prakash Reddy said.

Members of Rakshita, who are well-trained in Tae-Kwando, have started teaching girl students at schools and hostels the technique in self-defence.

Rakshita teams visit the villages where cases of foeticide/infanticide have been reported, to create awareness among people about the need to put an end to the evil.

Apart from this, it also tries to prevent the sale of girl children, child marriages, and sexual harassment.

After conducting the survey, police found that in some tribal belts 20% of girls had child marriages.