Girl child and social change.

This article discusses the state of social change and the disparity between India's Constitutional aims and actual practice in addressing gender inequality and the special risks of female children in India. The second part of this article summarizes Constitutional articles and laws relating to protection of women and a girl child. Before birth, a female child is at risk of fetal death. A woman is at risk of poorly performed abortions and maternal mortality. After birth, a girl child is at risk of child care of younger siblings, housework, lack of education, wage work for the household, sexual abuse, vulnerability at work or school or on the street, murder by her parents, abuse, malnutrition, and desertion. The SAARC summit declared 1990 the Year of the Girl Child. UN conventions and a world summit focused on the Rights of the Child. A child has a right to freedom from exploitation, neglect and abuse, and access to food, health care, and education. Articles 14, 15, and 16 of India's Constitution guarantee protection from discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth and equality of opportunity in public employment. Article 23 prohibits trafficking in humans and forced labor. Article 24 prohibits child labor under the age of 14 years. Article 39 assures an adequate means of livelihood, equal pay, and protection from child abuse and economic pressure to work in jobs unsuitable to a child's age and strength. Article 45 provides for free and compulsory education up to 14 years of age. Article 51 prohibits derogatory practices against women. Article 325 and 326 prohibits sex discrimination. Other laws pertain to dowry, marriage age, prostitution, abortion, juvenile justice, kidnapping, obscenity, procurement of a minor, sexual offenses, divorce and child support, child care, maternity benefits, and cruelty by a husband or relatives. The girl child in India continues to live in perpetual threat, both physiological and psychological.