And do not kill your children for fear of poverty. We provide for them and for you. Indeed, killing them is ever a sin that is great. (Surah Al-Isra 17:31)
The message from Allah (SWT) is very clear: killing of children by reason of paucity is a major sin whose forgiveness is never henceforth attainable. Such killings are thus forbidden. Unfortunately though, children are aborted, killed post-birth, neglected and abandoned in our so-called Islamic society with scant sympathy for a breathing being, sheer disregard to human right, and no fear of the Creator.
While extreme poverty does cause inclination towards foeticide or ditching a newborn, there are other reasons too behind such a sinful misdemeanor, like wish for a male child; dislike, even hatred, for a female one; secret marriage; illicit relationship; etc.
Poverty and backbreaking price hike in our country do tend to cause anxiety in marrying couples as regards expanding the family, but there are women who exercise sex-selective abortions, as most men want a son (who can bear the financial burden and carry the family’s name forward) and not a daughter who is rather thought of as a financial burden herself. Thus, there are parents who opt for an abortion on finding out that the baby is a girl. And in case of the pregnancy having been in the advanced stage, they don’t hesitate to get rid of the “unwanted child” by throwing them in the garbage dump.
Another major reason behind “unwanted children” ending up in garbage dumps are births out of wedlock. Such night-time garbage throws do hit the headlines of national news bulletins, but only to disappear from the national discourse pretty soon. In the year 2023, authorities in Karachi alone reported finding three expired newborns on a trash site.
Very rarely though, some of the “unwanted newborns” do find the cozy lap of a Good Samaritan. An example in the context is when a baby girl born to a homeless woman was brought to the authorities inside a garbage bag, she was eventually taken home by a kind and compassionate female constable serving the Islamabad police.
However, generally, unwanted baby boys and girls, swaddled yet lifeless, are left abandoned to die. A report by SOS Children’s Village Pakistan – a non-profit organisation working for the cause of shelterless children – says that the number of deserted children in the country stand around 4.2 million. According to this harrowing report, published in June 2023, the Edhi Foundation in Karachi alone buried 576 newborns – 200 in 2021; 289 in 2022; and 87 in the first six months of 2023. The most disturbing aspect of the whole sorry saga is that most of the corpses were of infanticidal baby girls.
Regrettably, hundreds of newborn babies are left abandoned in the streets every year in Pakistan. Even though child abandonment is punishable by law in the country, the unlawful, unethical and callous practice continues unchecked due to a host of underlying issues. The police customarily blame such unfortunate incidents on poverty, illiteracy, social stigma, etc. All this demonstrates that some kind of a social and cultural change is imperative in order to save such innocent, helpless beings from closing their eyes for good so early and for no fault of their own.
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The writer is a journalist based in Karachi. She can be contacted at Rumisamalik70@gmail.com
