London, An Indian journalist's videos capturing the scourge of female infanticide in his home state of Bihar and a grassroots campaign to fight the practice form the basis of a new documentary released by the BBC this week.
BBC World Service's Amitabh Parashar's 'The Midwife's Confession', which will be broadcast on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) news channel in two parts starting Saturday, consists of never-before-seen footage of midwives who assisted home births in and around Katihar over the years. His testimonies are the starting point of the film to explore the disturbing story of infanticide and how social worker Anila Kumari's campaign to work with the same midwives helped turn the tide.
"What is the real reason for the murders?" Parashar asks one of the midwives named Siro Devi, the only one of the women still alive and working as a midwife in the village during the course of their nearly 30-year filming project. years.
“The real reason is dowry. There is no other reason. Boys are considered superior and girls inferior,” Siro Devi tells Parashar.
The documentary was filmed, produced and directed over the past two years by a team of journalists and filmmakers from BBC Eye Investigations, a global documentary arm of the BBC World Service. The midwives can be seen telling Parashar, on camera, that they did not want to kill, but that the girls' own families were forcing them to kill the children, offering them money or even threatening them with violence if they refused. In the 1990s, when Anila Kumari learned of these murders, she designed an awareness program to persuade the same midwives to bring the babies to her instead of killing them.
“Anila's efforts marked a turning point for the midwives featured in this film. With her support, a small group of them, including Siro Devi, rescued at least five newborn girls whose families wanted to kill them or had already abandoned them. "One child died, but the other four were sent to an NGO in Patna, the capital of Bihar, and put up for adoption," said a statement from the BBC World Service about the documentary.
“With remarkable tenacity, Amitabh locates a young girl who, in all likelihood, is one of four surviving babies rescued by midwives in the late 1990s. Monica Thatte was adopted from an orphanage in Pune when she was three years old, and “The film follows his journey back to Bihar to meet Siro and Anila, whose campaign almost certainly saved his life,” he adds.
The second and final part of the documentary will air in the UK on September 21.
BBC World Service's Amitabh Parashar's 'The Midwife's Confession', which will be broadcast on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) news channel in two parts starting Saturday, consists of never-before-seen footage of midwives who assisted home births in and around Katihar over the years. His testimonies are the starting point of the film to explore the disturbing story of infanticide and how social worker Anila Kumari's campaign to work with the same midwives helped turn the tide.
"What is the real reason for the murders?" Parashar asks one of the midwives named Siro Devi, the only one of the women still alive and working as a midwife in the village during the course of their nearly 30-year filming project. years.
“The real reason is dowry. There is no other reason. Boys are considered superior and girls inferior,” Siro Devi tells Parashar.
The documentary was filmed, produced and directed over the past two years by a team of journalists and filmmakers from BBC Eye Investigations, a global documentary arm of the BBC World Service. The midwives can be seen telling Parashar, on camera, that they did not want to kill, but that the girls' own families were forcing them to kill the children, offering them money or even threatening them with violence if they refused. In the 1990s, when Anila Kumari learned of these murders, she designed an awareness program to persuade the same midwives to bring the babies to her instead of killing them.
“Anila's efforts marked a turning point for the midwives featured in this film. With her support, a small group of them, including Siro Devi, rescued at least five newborn girls whose families wanted to kill them or had already abandoned them. "One child died, but the other four were sent to an NGO in Patna, the capital of Bihar, and put up for adoption," said a statement from the BBC World Service about the documentary.
“With remarkable tenacity, Amitabh locates a young girl who, in all likelihood, is one of four surviving babies rescued by midwives in the late 1990s. Monica Thatte was adopted from an orphanage in Pune when she was three years old, and “The film follows his journey back to Bihar to meet Siro and Anila, whose campaign almost certainly saved his life,” he adds.
The second and final part of the documentary will air in the UK on September 21.
