Little Girls Bear the Brunt in India's Vicious Cycle of Malnutrition

Darbhanga, Bihar: When Palak was found barely breathing buried under a mound of soil in an impoverished village in Bihar, doctors who treated the abandoned new-born girl knew that nursing her back to health would not be easy.

Two months on, Palak's tiny frame - weighing half of what it should for her age - lies crumpled in a bed in a malnutrition intensive care unit, as she feebly cries for attention.

Despite India's economic boom over the last two decades, 46 percent of its children under five are underweight, 48 percent are stunted and 25 percent are wasted, according to the latest government figures.

The majority are girls, like Palak - abandoned, neglected or given less nutritious food than their male siblings, say health workers, attributing it to patriarchal attitudes in the country.

"Girls constitute more than two-thirds of patients, who are admitted and also those who drop out before completing the treatment,"  said Ziaul Haque, medical activities manager for the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) India, which runs the centre in Dharbhanga district.

Research conducted by MSF India between February 2009 and September 2011 found that of the more than 8,000 children admitted to the Dharbhanga centre, 62 percent were girls - even though females younger than 5 years constitute only 47 percent of the local population.

Dipa Sinha, an activist with the Right to Food campaign said generally girls in poor households are inadequately breast-fed and less likely to be provided with quality healthcare and access to sanitation.

"Overall, a girl child is far more neglected than a boy, especially, if she is a third or fourth girl child in the family," said Ms Sinha.

The centre is the only one in the district to offer therapeutic food for acutely malnourished children and has a 30-bed intensive care unit to treat tubercular infections, anaemia and respiratory diseases.

But even when girls start receiving the free treatment, they have a higher rate of drop-out compared to boys.

"When we try to counsel parents to admit acutely malnourished children, a typical father says 'Who cares? The girls can die'," said MSF's Haque, adding that more than 50 percent of drop-outs at the centre are girls.