Smartphones are taboo for some girls in India. That's bad news for their future
In some communities, parents won't get a phone for a daughter (though they will for a son). That's set girls back during the virtual learning of the pandemic and can dampen their job prospects.
Pinky finally got her phone.
And it helped her graduate from high school.
Pinky is now 21. She was 19 and in grade 11 when India closed schools as part of a nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID in March 2020.
Without a smartphone, Pinky, who lives in Beer village in the north Indian state of Rajasthan, could not join the WhatsApp group her teachers had created. She couldn't see the study material – which included everything from math problems to additional information based on their lessons. And she couldn't download homework.
"School closed and so did my access to education," she says.
It wasn't that a phone was too expensive. Her 24-year-old brother, who works in a factory, has one. A secondhand phone costs
