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2011-05-24 06:33:32
India's 2011 census shows a serious decline in the number of girls under the
age of seven - activists fear eight million female foetuses may have been
aborted in the past decade. The BBC's Geeta Pandey in Delhi explores what has
led to this crisis.
Kulwant has three daughters aged 24, 23 and 20 and a son who is 16.
In the years between the birth of her third daughter and her son, Kulwant
became pregnant three times.
Start Quote
Deepali Sah
My mother-in-law said if I had a daughter, my husband would leave me.
Thankfully, I had a son.
End Quote Deepali Sah Health worker
Each time, she says, she was forced to abort the foetus by her family after
ultrasound tests confirmed that they were girls.
"My mother-in-law taunted me for giving birth to girls. She said her son would
divorce me if I didn't bear a son."
Kulwant still has vivid memories of the first abortion. "The baby was nearly
five months old. She was beautiful. I miss her, and the others we killed," she
says, breaking down, wiping away her tears.
Until her son was born, Kulwant's daily life consisted of beatings and abuse
from her husband, mother-in-law and brother-in-law. Once, she says, they even
attempted to set her on fire.
"They were angry. They didn't want girls in the family. They wanted boys so
they could get fat dowries," she says.
India outlawed dowries in 1961, but the practice remains rampant and the value
of dowries is constantly growing, affecting rich and poor alike.
Kulwant's husband died three years after the birth of their son. "It was the
curse of the daughters we killed. That's why he died so young," she says.
Common attitude
Girl Power
How girls are valued varies widely across India. Over the years, most states in
the south and north-east have been kind to their girls, and sex ratios are
above the national average.
In the matrilineal societies of Kerala and Karnataka in the south and Meghalaya
in the north-east, women have enjoyed high status and commanded respect. But
the latest census figures show the good news even in these areas could be
turning bad. A minor decline in the number of girls has begun in the three
states which, campaigners worry, might be indicative of a trend.
What is seen as most distressing is the steep decline in the number of girls
under seven in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh and in Sikkim, Nagaland,
Manipur and Tripura in the north-east. Even though these states have registered
numbers much higher than the national average, the decline is too substantial
to ignore.
But all is not lost. Some states, such as Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh
- which saw the gap between numbers of boys and girls widen in 2001 - have
shown an improvement. That is cause for some cheer, campaigners say.
Her neighbour Rekha is mother of a chubby three-year-old girl.
Last September, when she became pregnant again, her mother-in-law forced her to
undergo an abortion after an ultrasound showed that she was pregnant with twin
girls.
"I said there's no difference between girls and boys. But here they think
differently. There's no happiness when a girl is born. They say the son will
carry forward our lineage, but the daughter will get married and go off to
another family."
Kulwant and Rekha live in Sagarpur, a lower middle-class area in south-west
Delhi.
Here, narrow minds live in homes separated by narrow lanes.
The women's story is common and repeated in millions of homes across India, and
it has been getting worse.
In 1961, for every 1,000 boys under the age of seven, there were 976 girls.
Today, the figure has dropped to a dismal 914 girls.
Although the number of women overall is improving (due to factors such as life
expectancy), India's ratio of young girls to boys is one of the worst in the
world after China.
Many factors come into play to explain this: infanticide, abuse and neglect of
girl children.
But campaigners say the decline is largely due to the increased availability of
antenatal sex screening, and they talk of a genocide.
Graphic of girls in India
The government has been forced to admit that its strategy has failed to put an
end to female foeticide.
'National shame'
"Whatever measures have been put in over the past 40 years have not had any
impact on the child sex ratio," Home Secretary GK Pillai said when the census
report was released.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described female foeticide and infanticide as a
"national shame" and called for a "crusade" to save girl babies.
But Sabu George, India's best-known campaigner on the issue, says the
government has so far shown little determination to stop the practices.
File photo of schoolchildren at a rally against female foeticide in Delhi
Campaigners say India's strategy to protect female babies is not working
Until 30 years ago, he says, India's sex ratio was "reasonable". Then in 1974,
Delhi's prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences came out with a
study which said sex-determination tests were a boon for Indian women.
It said they no longer needed to produce endless children to have the right
number of sons, and it encouraged the determination and elimination of female
foetuses as an effective tool of population control.
"By late 80s, every newspaper in Delhi was advertising for ultrasound sex
determination," said Mr George.
"Clinics from Punjab were boasting that they had 10 years' experience in
eliminating girl children and inviting parents to come to them."
In 1994, the Pre-Natal Determination Test (PNDT) Act outlawed sex-selective
abortion. In 2004, it was amended to include gender selection even at the
pre-conception stage.
Abortion is generally legal up to 12 weeks' gestation. Sex can be determined by
a scan from about 14 weeks.
"What is needed is a strict implementation of the law," says Varsha Joshi,
director of census operations for Delhi. "I find there's absolutely no will on
the part of the government to stop this."
Today, there are 40,000 registered ultrasound clinics in the country, and many
more exist without any record.
'Really sad'
Ms Joshi, a former district commissioner of south-west Delhi, says there are
dozens of ultrasound clinics in the area. It has the worst child sex ratio in
the capital - 836 girls under seven for every 1,000 boys.
Start Quote
Varsha Joshi
Something's really wrong here and something has to be done to put things right
End Quote Varsha Joshi Delhi census chief
Delhi's overall ratio is not much better at 866 girls under seven for every
1,000 boys.
"It's really sad. We are the capital of the country and we have such a poor
ratio," Ms Joshi says.
The south-west district shares its boundary with Punjab and Haryana, the two
Indian states with the worst sex ratios.
Since the last census, Punjab and Haryana have shown a slight improvement. But
Delhi has registered a decline.
"Something's really wrong here and something has to be done to put things
right," Ms Joshi says.
Almost all the ultrasound clinics in the area have the mandatory board outside,
proclaiming that they do not carry out illegal sex-determination tests.
But the women in Sagarpur say most people here know where to go when they need
an ultrasound or an abortion.
They say anyone who wants to get a foetal ultrasound done, gets it done. In the
five-star clinics of south Delhi it costs 10,000-plus rupees ($222; 135), In
the remote peripheral areas of Delhi's border, it costs a few hundred rupees.
Similarly, the costs vary for those wanting an illegal abortion.
Delhi is not alone in its anti-girl bias. Sex ratios have declined in 17 states
in the past decade, with the biggest falls registered in Jammu and Kashmir.
Ms Joshi says most offenders are members of the growing middle-class and
affluent Indians - they are aware that the technology exists and have the means
to pay to find out the sex of their baby and abort if they choose.
"We have to take effective steps to control the promotion of sex determination
by the medical community. And file cases against doctors who do it," Mr George
says.
"Otherwise by 2021, we are frightened to think what it will be like."