India: Fears for the future of girls

?Do you know, even before you finish reading this mail, two little unborn girls will be killed by their own parents?? asked a message that dropped into the inboxes of many citizens of Mumbai (Bombay) on July 11 last year. ?Each year 250,000 girls go missing because of sex selection. Even in this day and age, girls are obviously the unwanted sex,? it continued.

“Do you know, even before you finish reading this mail, two little unborn girls will be killed by their own parents?” asked a message that dropped into the inboxes of many citizens of Mumbai (Bombay) on July 11 last year. “Each year 250,000 girls go missing because of sex selection. Even in this day and age, girls are obviously the unwanted sex,” it continued.

This message is part of a renewed nationwide campaign to tackle the alarming decline in the number of girls in the Indian population due to practices like sex selective abortion, infanticide and abandonment. Despite legislative action, such as the expanded Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act that covers the use of new technologies for sex selection, doctors and medical institutions still cash in on the demand for the pre-birth elimination of females. They have even invested in mobile equipment to make ultrasound scanning available to pregnant women in the rural areas. Women who wish to get rid of female foetuses are referred to clinics in nearby towns for abortion, which has been legal in the country since 1971.

Sex selective abortion was recognised as a major national crisis after the 2001 Census of India revealed a sharp drop in the child sex ratio (the number of girls to 1000 boys) in many parts of the country, especially in the 0-6 age group. While the national average had decreased from 945 in 1991 to 927 in 2001, in some states it had dropped below 900, and in certain places below 800. In 70 districts of 16 states, there had been a 50 percent decline in the decade between the two census exercises. The decline in urban areas was over twice that in rural areas. The small states of Kerala in the south west and Manipur in the north east were the only ones among all the 35 states and union territories where the urban child sex ratios had not gone down.

Since the early 1980s, the tradition of female infanticide in some Indian communities has been replaced by sex selective abortion. Women’s groups and progressive health organisations have been concerned about the misuse of medical technologies for sex selection, since these technologies make it easier for people who may hesitate to actually kill a baby, to opt out of having female children.

A public interest litigation, filed in 2001 in the Supreme Court of India, led to a court order which goaded the official machinery to take some action. State governments issued newspaper advertisements clarifying that sex selection was a crime and the order called upon ultrasound clinics to display boards stating that they do not carry out sex-determination tests.

The Medical Council of India, which has been slow to act, finally decided in 2001 to amend its code of ethics so that medical practitioners who facilitate sex selective abortion can be prosecuted under the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956. To give teeth to the law and ethical guidelines, social education that highlights the value of the girl child to supplement and complement legal action is needed, especially since the tightening of the law has led to an apparent return of the old ways.

Reports of infanticide and abandonment have been trickling in, and also, late reporting of pregnancies and migration to other states for undetected sex selection have come into vogue. People continue to find ways around the law, because they are not yet convinced that girls are at least as valuable as boys.

Ammu Joseph is an independent journalist and author based in Bangalore, India.

This article is part of the GEM Opinion and Commentary Service that provides views and perspectives on current events.

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