Karachi, Pakistan (CNN) -- At a morgue in Pakistan's largest city, five linen pouches -- each the size of a loaf of bread -- line the shelf of a walk-in freezer.
Wrapped inside each small sack is the corpse of an infant.
The babies are victims of what one relief agency calls Pakistan's worst unfolding tragedy: the killing and dumping of newborns.
"Sometimes they hang them, and sometimes they kill by the knife, and sometimes we find bodies which have been burned," said Anwar Kazmi, a manager at Edhi Foundation, Pakistan's largest privately run social service and relief agency.
Records at Edhi Foundation show that more than 1,200 newborns were killed and dumped in Pakistan last year, an increase of about 200 from the previous year.
Families view many of these children as illegitimate in a culture that condemns those born outside of marriage.
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Islam prohibits infanticide or killing of female infants. This is considered a serious crime of murder.
Surah Al-Takvir Chapter 81, Verses 8 and 9 (81 : 8-9)
“When the female (infant), buried alive, is questioned, for what crime she was killed.” (17:31), (6:15)
Islam not only prohibits female infanticide, but it forbids all types of infanticide, irrespective of whether the infant is a male or female. It is mentioned in Surah Al-Anam chapter 6, Verse 151 (6:151).
“Kill not your children on a plea of want. We provide sustenance for you and for them. Come not near shameful deeds, whether open or secret. Take not life which Allah has made sacred.”
A similar guidance is repeated in Surah Al-Isra Chapter 17, Verse 31 (17:31).
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So here is my question – if you are living in an Islamic country where this is such a horrible sin, why not use birth control? Promote it!
Don’t think illegitimate babies aren’t dumped here in Kuwait too (I have personally heard of only one infant being killed and buried years ago). There are stories every once in a while in the papers about a baby being dumped outside of a mosque. How many more are un-reported or don’t make it into the media? (Babies dumped in Kuwait are taken in by the Kuwaiti government and given Kuwaiti nationality. Go visit the orphanage. Very sad.)
Reproduction (and sorry to offend anyone with the use of this word) and sex are instinctual and part of nature. You can’t pretend that it isn’t going on.
Back to Pakistan: I hope that more children’s organizations step up. There are so many couples in the world who can’t have babies and want to adopt. What a tragedy.
End of DG sermon of the day.
4 comments:
This really is such a horrible tragedy. Especially when there are so many people around the world who would love to adopt one of these children. Yet many refuse to allow anyone other than a Muslim raise their child (or someone from outside of the culture). So they opt to murder instead? Not sure where the logic in that is!
In some areas of India I've heard they throw newborn baby girls into the river to die. And even offer 'discount' abortions to women who find out they're carrying a girl -- and these women are married!
Been a policy in China for years.
the problem is not in Islam at all as you refered...its people's thoughts
I guess this is why the kuwaiti woman who came before me to the gyne clinic wouldn't come out of the room. she kept begging the doctor to tell her husband that it's a boy even though it was a girl. The doc says "what's the problem, you got 3 boys already!?!...
I just pray to god that that girl was born and is doing fine today.
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