Journalists Use Twitter To Find and Adopt Newborn Abandoned in Garbage Dump in India
A video of a newborn girl abandoned in a garbage dump in India went viral last week on Twitter, and a couple says they used the platform to find and try to adopt her.
The graphic video shows a tiny baby naked and crying in the dirt. It was posted on Twitter where Sakshi Joshi, associate editor and news anchor with News 24 TV Channel, re-posted it asking for her followers to help find where the baby was located. She tweeted that she and her husband, Vinod Kapri, also a journalist, wanted to adopt the baby.
“Everybody on Twitter was keen to find the girl,” Joshi said, according to CNN. “Twitter had the biggest role in the whole story.”
“We had no idea of the location of the video or its authenticity,” Kapri told CNN. “We see many fake videos of babies on social media.”
The couple learned that the baby was found in Rajasthan, India and was in critical condition at a hospital because she was only 3.5 pounds, they told CNN. She had been abandoned in a dumpster site, Business Insider reported. Sharing updates with Twitter, they spoke to doctors and expressed their interest in adopting the baby, CNN reported.
WARNING: The following linked clip contains graphic imagery that some viewers may find offensive.
ये चीख़ अब और नहीं सुनी जा सकती। कोई जानकारी हो तो बताइए।हम इस बच्ची को अपने जीवन का हिस्सा बनाना चाहेंगे। @sakshijoshii pic.twitter.com/KQokFKJf8P
— Vinod Kapri (@vinodkapri) June 14, 2019
The journalists drove more than 300 miles on Saturday to meet the baby girl while asking Twitter for tips on the adoption process, which is long in India according to CNN.
कल तक इस परी के नाम के आगे “ अज्ञात “ लिखा था। और आज इसके पास नाम है : “पीहू “. Till yesterday she was UNKNOWN in hospital records , but now she has a name : PIHU. #HappyFathersDay . @sakshijoshii pic.twitter.com/tZBx4gF682
— Vinod Kapri (@vinodkapri) June 16, 2019
“We never had any intention of adopting a baby. I’m already 46,” Kapri said to CNN. “We had no idea about the process. We started researching and we found out that adoption is quite tedious and long in India.”
The couple arrived at the hospital and named the baby “Pihu,” then posted a photo on Father’s Day with their potential future daughter. Twitter users suggested the name Pihu, CNN reported. “It’s [Pihu] the name of a bird and a film I directed. The main character has a 2-year-old,” Kapri said, according to CNN.
Abandoning baby girls in India is common, and thousands are dumped on doorsteps, buried alive or left to die in ditches every year, according to Mirror UK. Ninety percent of 11 million abandoned children are girls, according to the Times of India.
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