Abandoned as infants, 86 ‘brainwashed’ women move SC for right to self-determination

The women from Tamil Nadu were abandoned by their parents, and are lashing out at efforts to evict them from missionary shelter that raised them.

New Delhi: Come November, the judiciary will once again weigh in on an adult’s right to choose their way of life, months after the Hadiya ‘love jihad’ saga saw the Supreme Court uphold the sanctity of individual freedom with respect to marriage and religion.

Eighty-six women abandoned as children during a spate of female infanticide cases in a Tamil Nadu town have approached the Supreme Court against efforts to get them out of a Christian missionary shelter that raised them.

The shelter allegedly kept them ignorant of the most basic human activities, like handling money and buying goods, to brainwash and subsequently indoctrinate them.

The state is arguing for the women to be taken out of the Trichy-based Mose Ministries, but the women want to stay on. The Supreme Court will take a call on the issue on 14 November.

On 9 April, as it heard Kerala woman Hadiya’s plea to live with her Muslim husband, the apex court had made a firm case for an individual’s right to choose their religion and marry a partner of their choice.

A Hindu, Hadiya had converted to Islam before marriage, which led her parents to challenge the union in court. In the case, the Supreme Court said neither society nor the state had any right or role in an individual’s choice of partner or religion.

However, the apex court failed to note that Hadiya had not come to simply assert her right to religion or marry a partner of her choice. She came for the most basic right — her right to determine for herself.

Nobody’s children

The story of the Madurai women, aged 18-28, started more than two decades ago.

During the 1980s and 1990s, female infanticide was rampant in the town of Usilampatti in Madurai district, and parents often abandoned or killed any “extra” girls born in the family, that is, the second or third daughter, with societal sanction.

The state government introduced several schemes to curb the practice, including the ‘Cradle Scheme’ in 1992, through which parents could drop off an unwanted girl child in a ‘cradle’ outside a hospital. These girls would then be put up for adoption, failing which they would go to any one of the many state-run children homes.

According to a report by Firstpost, 156 of the 1,194 girls born between April 1993 and December 1993 in the town were suspected to have been killed, while 243 infanticides were prevented and seven babies abandoned under the Cradle Scheme.

The 86 petitioners were allegedly abandoned as infants by their parents, and taken in by the pastor who ran Mose Ministries, Gideon Jacob.

Over two decades later, in 2015, NGO CHANGEIndia approached the Madras High Court against what it described as the deplorable condition of the girls staying at Mose Ministries, saying they were even deprived of an education.

The NGO sought a CBI inquiry against the missionary home and proposed that the girls be returned to their parents.

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A court-monitored CBI inquiry ensued and the agency arrested Jacob. Meanwhile, an additional district magistrate inspected the home and interacted with the girls, and a committee was constituted on the court’s order for the maintenance of Mose Ministries and the rehabilitation of the girls.

The committee, the court ordered, should include experts from the NGO Indian Council of Child Welfare (ICCW).

Disturbing observations

The district judge who talked to the girls recorded several disturbing details.

“The older girls totally lack general knowledge and the girls confess that they have never handled money,” she wrote.

“When I asked one of the children what you will do if you want a pencil, she immediately told me that she would pray to Jesus and Jesus would in turn send the pencil through some person.

“When I asked one of the girls what she would do if she was stranded in a public place without money and how she would reach her home, she simply stated that she would pray to Lord Jesus to send someone to take her and then she would wait for that person.”

The judge added: “Though the children are not aware of what happens in the outside world, they are being kept abreast (by the shelter) of the current litigation…

“The children have been made to think that their Pastor Gideon Jacob is suffering for the sins committed by the children and in spite of the fact that he was their savior, he is being troubled only because of the sins of the girls.”

In her report, the judge said some of the girls had expressed a wish to be reunited with their parents.

“Some children have been promised that they will be permitted to study degree through correspondence…” she added.

“…All the older children have been promised to be married off in the near future by the pastor.”

She hinted that the girls were receiving some manner of a formal education, but added that it was accompanied by theology lessons.

The ICCW made similar observations in their report.

“All girls… had been systematically subjected to indoctrination or a sort of brainwash to surrender their entire life to be controlled by the so-called ‘FATHER’ and their thinking process [sic] are completely different from those of girls of their age,” it wrote.

“They are unable to differentiate between normal religious beliefs to [sic] pathological religious delusions.

“It is a highly complex situation… Attempt of any aggressive intervention/counselling could have negative impact.”

What the girls say

Last year, in light of the observations and the CBI investigation, the Madras High Court put the women in the custody of the Madurai social welfare department and directed their relocation from Mose Ministries to state-run shelter homes.

The women subsequently moved the Supreme Court against the order, saying they simply wanted the right to free choice.

Earlier this year, when the district administration attempted to relocate the girls, they resisted and expressed their desire to continue living at Mose Ministries pending the Supreme Court judgment.

The women, still living at the missionary shelter, said they wanted to complete their education there, exercise their right to marry a partner of their choice, follow their religion and simply work at a place of their choosing. The women, who were brought up as a family, added that they did not want to relocate and be at the mercy of strangers.

They have claimed that the rejection, restrictions, continued monitoring, intimidation, scolding, threats and false advice they had faced during the investigation had brought back the trauma of being rejected by their parents.

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In February this year, senior advocate Colin Gonsavles, appearing for the women, told the Supreme Court that the women were capable of looking after themselves, and requested their release from the district social welfare department.

What SC said

When the case came up for hearing, the Supreme Court said the women ought to be interviewed by an “independent competent person” before any decision was taken.

Former Madras High Court judge Justice K.N. Basha was chosen to interview the women and asked to furnish a report on the interaction.

Basha has since submitted his report, as has the CBI. However, on account of the sensitive nature of the situation, the apex court has prevented the reports from becoming public. The girls will now have to file their response before the court makes a final decision.

The apex court will take guidance from the two reports as it takes up the case next month.

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