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Culture

Big Pimpin’ in the name of religion

By: Santosh :+: Under: Culture, It Happens Only in India, Religion
On: ⋅ June 19, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment
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Big pimpin not in the Jay-Z mold.

We’re talking about parents selling their girl child to lead a life of prosperity, pimping, in other words. Devadasi (no relation to the Shah Rukh Khan snoozefest) literally means “servant of god” except that these women are not.

As children their parents gave them to serve Yellama - the goddess of fertility.
At the temple to Yellama in Saundatti women dance and praise the goddess.

The Yellama cult:
A cult that would make Mola Ram proud
img: via BBC

Why would parents knowingly sell their daughter into what can only be termed as “sexual slavery”? The answer is simple, cash-money, bling-bling.

When girls dedicated to Yellama reach puberty they are forced to sacrifice their virginity to an older man. What follows is a life of sexual slavery, they become sanctified prostitutes.
The money devadasis earn goes straight to their parents who often act as pimps for their daughters.
“My parents didn’t have any sons, so there was nobody to earn the family a living,” says Imla. We found Shoba’s mother Satyavati tending to her field of sunflowers. Sacrificing their daughter’s life has enriched Shoba’s parents.

I was fortunate enough to be fed, clothed and educated courtesy my parents and I confess I will never know what it was like to lead a hand to mouth existence, or maybe I’m just plain callous. So what is the thought process of these people?
Why go through the trouble of bearing a child and then having to feed her, cloth her, educate her and get her married, when you can sell her into sexual slavery and make some neat cash for yourself?
The practice is thriving, even thought it has been outlawed for the last half century.

The practice of dedicating young girls as devadasis has been outlawed for over 50 years, but still it happens.
Anti-slavery campaigners estimate that there are at least 25,000 devadasis in the state of Karnataka alone.

I remember a fellow desi student at FSU, from a certain state in Southern India, was ecstatic when he graduated and found employment at a premier software company, whose founder’s name rhymes till Till Hates. He was happy because he could collect over a crore rupees worth of dowry. Yes, dowry still exists, not just among the poor and uneducated but also among the rich and educated. Dowry, or the fear of dowry, besides bride burning also plays a big roles in parents selling their daugthers to this cult.

It also means they don’t have to save for a dowry, and the daughter becomes a bread-winner.

Superstition is also a major factor.

The goddess of fertility is seen as a powerful force. Many believe that giving girls to Yellama will bring good fortune on a family.

So what makes these parents think about sacrificing their children for money and prosperity?
A) Poverty
B) Lack of education
C) Governmental apathy
D) Religious leaders
Answer: All of the above. And above all, greed.

“Because Shoba earns so much money she has been able to build us a house, and she bought these fields. So what’s the big deal?”

Mother’s Day and Father’s Day must be a blast with these folks.

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