People & Their
Problems
New Delhi, 14 December 2007
Female Foeticide
END INHUMAN
KILLINGS
By Radhakrishna Rao
The relentless
female foeticide linked to the sex-determination test in Punjab
and Haryana, which has led to an alarming dip in the female population of the
two States, have now found a new easy-to-use high-tech gadget to determine the
sex of the unborn baby.
For parents who consider a male progeny as a prized possession,
this innovative kit imported from the US
and Canada
and costing around Rs.20,000 has become a most sought after gadget in the
States. The gadget enables the identification of the gender of the foetus
within seven weeks of the pregnancy.
Both in Punjab and Haryana
where a skewed sex ratio has caused an acute shortage of “local brides’, this
new kit could definitely undermine the efforts at minimizing the menace of
female foeticde. Against such a bleak social situation, women’s groups and
religious organisations in both the States are now in the thick of a campaign
aimed at ending the rampant and widespread menace of female foeticide.
As things stand, the female-men ration in India is 933
females for every 1,000 men. However, in sharp contrast Punjab
has 874 females and Haryana 857 females for every 1,000 men. Kerala seems to be
the only exception. There are more women than men in this lush green South Indian
State.
According to the Punjab Medical Council, "There are
reports that doctors who are believed to be indulging in the illegal practice
to carry out sex determination tests through the ultra-sound technique are
selling the kit to the clients.” To cry a halt to this, the State’s medical
fraternity has now called for widening the scope of Pre-Natal Diagnostic
Techniques (PNDT) Act to take care of the latest development.
Incidentally, Punjab is
known to lose one fourth of all girls who would be born. Appalled by the
growing and unchecked trend of female foeticide and abandoned female children, the
Shiromani Gurudwara Prabhanadhak Committee (SGPC), the highest seat of Sikh spiritual
and temporal authority, has not only issued
an edict against female foeticide but has also decided to take care of the
abandoned female babies.
Towards this end, the SGPC would soon ask the gurudwaras all over the State to place
cradles at their entrances and exhort unhappy parents obsessed with “a boy” syndrome to leave “the innocent female
children at God’s door and not the devil’s”.
According to media reports, in recent months, there has been
an increase in the number of new-born female children being abandoned in public
parks, railway compartments and roadsides.
Further, as pointed out by the Centre for Advocacy and
Research, “The preference for a son is a reality but we have to create enough processes to make sex determination costly and difficult.
Without this happening, talking of putting an end to sex-determination is like crying
in wilderness.”
In Rajasthan, ten out of 28 districts have a sex ratio
between 850 and 900 girls per 1,000 boys. Recall, the discovery of a few female
foetuses in a deserted place outside the township of Nayagarh
in Orissa sometime back had created
country-wide revulsion. It was alleged that a few doctors working in the Government
hospitals had a role to play in this heinous act.
Following the public outrage, the Orissa
State Health Department raided 277 nursing homes spread across the State. Shockingly, it was found that about 78
of these were unregistered. The truth finally emerged. Nayagarh had become a
nerve centre of female foeticide.
According to a demographer, “The unholy alliance between
tradition (son preference) and technology (ultra-sound) has a played a havoc in
Indian society.” Added a doctor, “Ultra-sound was invented in the 1950s for
safe motherhood but it has not only killed millions of foetuses in India, it is also
a leading cause of matrimonial mortality.”
In States such as Punjab and
Haryana, where there is a serious shortage of local women, men are forced to
marry girls from outside their home states. For instance, Jat men from the pre-dominantly agricultural hamlets of Haryana,
enter into wed-lock with girls from the North Kerala township of Payyannur.
However, many of these girls from the impoverished social background, unable to
withstand the ignominies heaped on them, have returned back to Payyannur.
Men from the Punjab villages “import” brides from parts of
Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and the North-Eastern
States. What is more,
some Punjabi men have managed to get brides from as far off as Philippines.
These brides are not only expected to take care of the rigors of the household
work and agricultural operations but also bear, ideally, a male progeny.
In some cases one “bride” is shared by a number of brothers
in the family they are married into. Thus polyandry is raising its ugly head in
the rural backyards of Haryana and Punjab.
Sociologists are clear in their perception that a huge dowry
associated with marrying off a girl
is a major factor pushing the people of Punjab and Haryana (to a large extent)
and Western Uttar Pradesh (to some extent), into the clutches of the “female
foeticide.”
Moreover, as per the Hindu tradition, only a male can lit
the pyre of his dead father or mother. Besides, a male child is considered a “safety
net” in the evening of one’s life. In fact, a favourite justification for
supporting the practice of female foeticide is that it serves as an effective
tool of family planning.
However, many field surveys show that sex-determination
tests can only ensure multiple abortions with perilous consequences for the
well-being of the female. As it stands, the lack of food, clean drinking water,
economic security and safe clinical facilities could lead to a situation where
women has to have over six children to ensure one surviving male child.
Indeed, as one research study points out, any further
reduction in the sex ratio in North India
would signify a continuing decline in the relative status of women. Moreover,
it would be unlikely to offer any benefit to the women. Thus, the ongoing
practice of female foeticide completely negates the glorification of women in India’s
religious texts as the “Mother Supreme.” ----- INFA
(Copyright India News & Feature Alliance)
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