Looking for Nakoshi

With the drive continuing,the district administration’s health department is planning a programme to educate and create awareness among the parents and to even rename these girls.

A father of five girls from Patan,says,“We wanted a boy and when our fifth child too turned out be a girl,we named her Nakoshi.” He has no qualms saying that the name only expressed what they felt when the child was born.

“Even as we are slowly working on improving the sex ratio of our district,the mindset of the people has not changed,” says Dr Bhagwan Pawar,who initiated the Nakoshi project in the district.

The state’s sex ratio is 884 girls for every 1,000 boys,which is far below the national rate of 933.

“This project is part of improving the condition of the girl child. Most of them were not even being sent to schools. The district health officers had a tough task of persuading the parents to send these children to school,” says Pawar.

Supported by Ahmednagar based activist Dr Sudha Kankariya,Dr Pawar rounded up over 200 families with little Nakoshis and now wants to conduct a taluka-level function to rename them.

“When we talked to these children,they disliked their name and wanted another name. Some of them were even shy to tell their name,” says a district health worker in the department.

An eight-year-old Nakoshi from Patan was happy when the health officials told her that there were other children with the same name. “I don’t like my name,” she says.

Dr Sudha Kankaria,who tied up with Dr Pawar for this project,says the project aims to reach out to parents who have named their child Nakoshi and stop discriminating on the basis of gender.

“Besides project Nakoshi,we are also asking couples to take eighth pheras instead of the traditional seven pheras during their wedding ceremony. The eight phera will be an oath they will not discriminate between a boy and a girl,” she says.