Profession of of the nun-hood in Kerala

Profession of of the nun-hood in Kerala

In Kerala many nuns are forced into convents by parents too poor to marry them off. Marriage expenses of these communities are a major concern to these parents. The dowaries for marriageble girls are also out of question.

Under such conditions, an opportunity to send a daughter off to a convent is like a godsend--- hundreds of families took advantage of it and encourage their daughters to join convents as they pass the tenth standard and later made to entrol as nuns. The Church in Kerala is booking profit out of this economic backwardness that still exists amongst the Christian families and thus recruits girls from such families as nuns.

More over there have been cases where male members of the family forcibly send girls to the nunnery as they do not want to part with their properties. Nuns have no right to property as they adopt nun's life after taking the poverty pledge. commission's observation about the poor plight of nuns in the convents

Violation of Human Rights

Society and religious bodies should see plight of nuns as human rights issue. The practice of recruiting girls to the convents before 18 must go.The recruitment to the profession of nunnery at the tender age is not different from girl-foeticide, so it must be treated as criminal act and those who involve, with out considering the social status of person, must brought before the law.

If criminal laws are not sufficient to deal with, it should make further laws to book the culprits. State government also should enact a law to prevent exploitation of nuns.The girls who became nuns should be allowed to retain the share of the family wealth they inherited.