Submitted by Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
Deutsche Welle reports a frightening and disturbing practice within Pakistan where newborn children are murdered due to the stigma of illegitimacy.
Warning: This article contains explicit information.
Adultery is often punished by vigilantism where family exact revenge against couples, often murderously. The children and mothers more often are targeted.
Nurse Razia Zulfikar of a maternity hospital in Gujranwala, Pakistan states that hundreds of children are killed simply by reason of the status of having unwed parents; a social taboo of society. The law provides a potential capital criminal offense stemming from pre-marital intercourse.
An eight-month pregnant girl came to us just a few days ago. We didn’t want to admit her to our hospital. After repeated requests from her family, we finally agreed to treat her. But we told the family explicitly that we would not kill the child,” Zulfikar told DW. “We gave the baby to the girl’s family. Only she and her family know what they did to the newborn, and how they killed him,” she added
A Pakistani welfare organization known as the Edhi Foundation estimated that 1,100 children were murdered and dumped into garbage bins last year. The figure is likely much higher as cases were tabulated only within large cities and not rural areas. Anwar Kazmi, a manager within the organization, describes the atrocities he and members of his charity have witnessed:
“A six-day-old child was burnt to death. We also found the corpses of babies who had been hanged, or who had been partly eaten by animals,” Anwar Kazmi, a manager at the Edhi Foundation, told DW.
“I can never forget one incident. A woman left a child in front of a mosque hoping that somebody would adopt him. But the cleric of the mosque ordered the people to stone the child to death. I saw the mutilated and torn body of the child myself,” he recalled
To address this painful issue, the Edhi Foundation began the Jhoola Project (meaning Cradle in Urdu) which encourages individuals to bring unwanted children and place them within cradles at foundation offices. This happens more often during the late hours and promises anonymous placement without fear of retribution against the mother or the child.
Edhi Foundation maintains over three hundred branches throughout the country.
Abortions are illegal in Pakistan with the exception of medical necessity to prevent harm to the mother. However this exception does not apply to unmarried women, leaving the mother to face persecution and perhaps the ultimately the murder of her child.
The murder of an infant in Pakistan is still a crime, but this unfortunately is not a deterrent to some who place their morals above the law.
By Darren Smith
Source:
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That’s the phrase, I keep getting that wrong. Thanks Annie.
http://americanhistory.about.com/od/usconstitution/g/popular_sovereignty.htm
Have fun, people, play nice.
Olly,
Baloney, “Popular Sovereignty” is an Annie phrase, which BTW is one of the 6 principles the Constitution is based on. Now I must run.
Agenda? Yeah, unalienable rights and the proper role of government. The right to life happens to be one of them.
Sovereign people is an Annie phrase so you might want to ask her about that. No need to concern yourself with my keyboarding time, if I didn’t have the time I wouldn’t do it.
Help! Lost a post.
We need a teenager on this site to tame the Word Mess beastie.
Doc – Al Jazeerah America is more moderate. I have experience with ME Al Jazeerah, and will always have a sour taste with the organization.
Again, I’ve quoted AJ, and yet am not pro-AJ, for anyone who might be tempted to dip a toe in that water again.
Karen S, I retrieved your comment at 4:21.
Doc – When I post a link, I have been accused of completely agreeing with the source. It gets brought up over and over again. For example, I was looking for a specific quote on Sharia, and finally found it. But the source for the link was considered anti-Islamic. No matter what I said, I was called an Islamophobe, because the quote on the law was from that site.
However, I can post from HuffPo and not be a Liberal, from a Labor Union and not be pro-union, etc.
I was pointing out the absurdity of the original accusation. But it was not directed at you.
No agenda with Olly!
Have you a tract that we can all read about sovereign people and unalienable rights?
That might save you some keyboarding time.
Karen,
Frankly, I was shocked when I saw the al jazzera link. Kudos to you for that. And, IIRC, I thanked you for it.
Didn’t I say the article lends credence to the original story? And yes, I did point out that the cleric stoning story remains unsubstantiated and that harami needs further explanation. It’s a habit of mine. I read, I question, I ask ‘what’s missing?’. I try not to conclude something that is not there.
The whole Huff Po comment is just silliness.
I do not bash all of Islam. Hence my repeated statements that I support moderate Muslims and freedom of religion. Continually accusing me of doing so does not make it so.
Do I need to tell you this in Arabic or Farsi for you to believe me? Is cursing in Farsi allowed on the site, because I’ve got some colorful ones. I had trouble learning a particular sound in Farsi, so my friends taught me some naughty words. And there I was, practicing this sound that was so challenging for me, when I noticed some very shocked looks. LOL.
LOL! I’ve built the slippery slope? That’s rich. I understand you won’t define that thingy growing inside the womb of a woman as a baby because that would make killing it horrible. So, let’s get back to the point of the natural right to LIFE and the next Winter Olympics.
A culture that believes the power exists with the sovereign people and/or government to determine when a human life should be protected is well on its way down that slippery slope.
I respect everyone’s opinions on abortion.
Most people believe there should be a limit on abortion. For example, the vast majority of people oppose abortion of a full term fetus, seconds before he draws breath.
For some, that limit is at conception. For others, there are no limits at all.
It is a very polarizing issue, that’s for sure.
Of course Karen. However we don’t need to bash all of Islam, do we? No.
Off to a function, not ignoring or evading.
Doc, when hot button topics are broached, I’ve noticed all those ‘reason and logic!’ spouters seem to fall down big time.
Annie – I am not the only person who has noticed that logic is not your strong suit.
“So what the hell is wrong with some people having discussions that offer their opinion about death?
Aren’t such discussions protected under the 1st?”
Yes they are. And we are perfectly free to object and be disgusted.
There is nothing wrong with having and voicing an opinion that people who are age 75 are too old to live. Or holding the opinion that people with IQs under 90 should be eliminated or not allowed to breed. Or….that children with deformities should be eliminated, allowed to die through passive actions or actively killed. Or that illegitimate children are a mistake a sin and should be killed as this article shows . Lots of opinions that many find abhorrent and unethical can be expressed.
What is wrong is to propose this as an official policy or to be a governmentally implemented action. One way to implement this…you die at 75….. is to withhold medical care after a certain age. With a single payer system, this would be a very easy policy to do.
Annie:
“Don’t we westerners WANT less moderate Muslims to follow the better aspects of Islam?”
Wait – so you’re saying you would like extremist Muslims to reform to become more moderate.
That’s exactly what I’ve said.
This is what I’m talking about when I ask why there is any controversy? I support freedom of religion, and moderate Muslims. I dislike the abuses of human rights that occur under Sharia Law and extremism, such as the murder of gays, etc. Why argue with that?
I’ve had people try to explain to me that I must oppose all Muslims, or be Islamophobic, and I just laugh.
OLLY a fetus isn’t a 9 month old when it’s born. It’s a newborn. A 12 week fetus doesn’t have a completed nervous system yet, the pain receptors are not even ‘connected’. A newborn’s ARE. You cannot equate an abortion at 12 weeks to infanticide of a newborn, that unscientific to say the VERY least.
Olly
A twelve week old fetus is not a baby.
And that slippery slope you’ve built should be good enough for the next winter Olympics.
What happened to all that Reason and Logic?
Methinks the extremist underpinnings are beginning to show.
docmadison – I have to disagree with you, what you call a 12 week fetus, I call a 12 week unborn baby.
So, wait, you’re saying that you linked to a site, but you only agree with a line or two, and that’s OK. But when I do it to show the pics of women being stoned, and a child getting his arm crushed, although I may not agree with other positions or articles, that’s not?
One way for thee, another for me.
Annie – could you please explain this to the imams of Pakistan who are opposing the Edhi Foundation?
As I have said many times before, it is quite common for moderate, modern Muslims to live quite peacefully and in harmony, here in the US and elsewhere. It is the extremist interpretations that leads to an abuse of human rights, of which we complain routinely on this blog.