A Pledge to the Goddess to Stop Female Foeticide

From IndiaExpress.com: Ambaji pilgrims pledge before goddess to fight female foeticide Amrita Didyala Posted: Oct 13, 2008 at 0313 hrs IST Ahmedabad, October 12 A total of five lakh ‘Sankalp Patras’ signed to save the girl child and curb sex discrimination Pilgrims at the famous Ambaji temple in Banaskantha district found a new way to check the dwindling female sex ratio in the state - ‘Sankalp Patras’. The Ambaji Temple Committee members made the devotees sign the ‘Sankalp Patras’ to curb sex discrimination and female foeticide, along with a pledge to save the girl child. A total of five lakh ‘Sankalp Patras’ were signed. R.J Patel, District Collector of Banaskantha and Chairman of the Ambaji Temple Committee, said: “Out of the 25 lakh pilgrims who visited Ambaji Temple, a total of 5 lakh devotees signed the Sankalp Patras in a span of 5 days between September 11 and 15.” He added: “While the idea has been implemented for the first time at any religious place, the chances of its success are quite high as people have willingly taken a pledge before the goddess and are most likely to abide by it. In fact, we did not have to make too many efforts to persuade the devotees. All we had to do was to put up notice boards along with the Sankalp Patras.” The Ambaji Development Authority also plans to implement the same method to make devotees pledge for saving the girl child by making the Sanklap Patras available in the soon-to-be developed replicas of the 51 Shaktipeeths at the Gabbar mountain. Patel said: “We have plans to extend the experiment to other religious destinations in the area as well. This is for the first time that such an experiment has been undertaken at a religious place in the state. However, with the active participation of future devotees, the awareness campaign is bound to be effective.”