New Covenant Infant Home

Femicide is the polite legal term for it - the growing practice which for generations has brought death to countless infant girls in villages throughout India.

The centuries-old dowry system dooms families with girls to poverty, debt and despair. In order to secure a marriage for their daughter, an Indian family must pay a fortune to the groom’s family. Often this involves selling any property they have, or descending hopelessly into debt. Even then, if the dowry is not enough a young bride may even be driven to suicide by her husband’s family, to make way for a more lucrative match.

For the 80% of Indians who live in isolated villages, gender-specific abortion (tragically common in much of Asia) is not an option, as they often have no access to such medical services. These combined circumstances have spawned the quiet killing of an increasing number of newborn girls. Baby boys are always spared, as they will be able to demand a dowry in marriage.

A village midwife often receives less than a dollar for a delivery. If an unwanted girl is born, she may be offered much more money to kill the infant upon delivery.

BCM village pastors have tried repeatedly to intervene in such killings. They offer to take the infant away to be raised by the disciples in Rameswaram. In most cases they arrive too late. I remember Pastor Ravi describing the agony of being handed an already dead baby after he had raced frantically to a Hindu birth home, hoping to rescue a newborn after hearing that it was a girl.

But sometimes a pastor will succeed, and an ignominious death is dramatically displaced by loving Christian nurturing and discipleship.

Our Infant Rescue Home, near the Training Center in Rameswaram, is now home to more than a dozen such rescued infants. It was completed in 2007, and will easily accommodate fifty children under the age of three. As they get older they are relocated to the Glorious Children’s Home nearby.

We have a staff of Christian women who provide the best bonding and nurturing you could have short of adoption. Tiffany Golden, from Oregon, also resides there now as a regular BCM staffer, devoted to serving those little girls she loves dearly.

We have found American sponsors for some of the girls, and hope to find others to help out as yet more baby girls arrive each season, saved from death by watchful village pastors.

Following is a recent account of two of the rescues from December of 2008, as recounted by one of the disciples on staff with BCM:

Adapted From An Excerpt From The Unreached Villages January 2009 Receipt Update:

"Late night last mid December, a Catholic man was pedaling his bike past the BCM Training Center and ministry land. As he crossed the railroad tracks near the main gate, an odd noise by the side of the road caught his ear. His flashlight illuminated a tiny baby girl, left on a small cloth on the ground, crying pitifully. She was naked and weighed only a few pounds. She was unharmed by the passing dogs and livestock common in that place, indicating that she had probably only been abandoned there for a short time before he found her. He carried her to the guard at the gate who called Pastor Paulose and Sister Sarojam. They came at once and contacted the police authorities, who declared they were certain that the BCM infant rescue center would do a fine job of caring for the abandoned girl. As a name is required for legal registry of a birth, a young couple in the US promptly volunteered to name her and sponsor her support. She is now Maria Ruth Michael.

Femicide, or the killing of unwanted baby girls, is very common among Hindu villagers. This one event is an answered prayer. It marks a turning point in the Ministry's efforts to ebb this tragic tide and save as many of these doomed newborns as we possibly can.

About 200 miles inland in the tiny village of Usilampatti, another girl was born this last Christmas Eve. Her parents were expecting a son to help work in the fields. When they found that they had been given a girl instead, they decided to kill her, as many do in that region. Pastor Ravi and his wife Komaloom have lived in a nearby village for over twelve years, planting churches in the area. They have already rescued several baby girls from death in recent years. Upon hearing of the couple's intentions, Ravi rushed to their village. He was just in time to intervene, making a formal pact with the parents to allow BCM to take their daughter and raise her as a Christian. A few days later she arrived safely at the BCM Infant Rescue Center, where loving arms are now caring for her. She awaits a name and a sponsor, but will someday become aware of her Savior as well as His servants who saved her life."

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