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Poll Ranks India Among Most Dangerous Countries for Women, Cites Rising Rates of Female Feticide

Poll Ranks India Among Most Dangerous Countries for Women, Cites Rising Rates of Female Feticide - TrustLaw

21 Oct 2011 10:52

Source: Content partner // Global Press Institute

MUMBAI, INDIA - Jasjit Kaur, 40, who requested her name be changed, is a well-educated urban housewife. Fifteen years ago, she says her family pressured her to have two abortions, a decision she has long regretted.

Kaur says she was a happy mother of two daughters and didn't want to have more children. But her husband and in-laws kept pressuring her to bear a male child, a preference she didn't share.

She says that her husband told her that their two daughters would go away to live with their husbands when they got married, but a son would stay and take care of them in their old age. Her husband and her in-laws also worried about the expensive dowries they would have to pay their daughters' husbands on their wedding days.

Her in-laws also felt they were respected less in their village because they didn't have a grandson. She says that having a son or grandson was a status symbol for them.

Any attempts to argue about gender equality were in vain. She says daily arguments disrupted the peace of their home, and she didn't want her daughters to watch their parents fight every day.

After nearly two years of fighting, Kaur says she agreed to have one more child to avoid further pressure and arguments at home. She says she was well-aware that, even though it would be illegal, her husband and in-laws would force her to abort the baby if an ultrasound revealed she was carrying a girl.

Kaur says she became pregnant twice, but that her husband and in-laws forced her to abort both because they were girls. After back-to-back abortions, Kaur says she was physically and emotionally weak. She says the abortions were strenuous on her body, and the guilt was overwhelming.

She says she became pregnant one more time and was relieved to learn that it was a boy because her body couldn't withstand another abortion.

Kaur's story has become incresasingly common in India.

The preference for sons cuts across all sectors of Indian society. Many Indians view daughters as burdens for various economic and social reasons, leading to high rates of female feticide and infanticide. The government has outlawed sex-selective abortion, but admits legislation has been ineffective. As the government and nongovernmental organizations, NGOs, work on various initiatives to reduce these rates, doctors say the only solution is elevating the status of girls in Indian society.

India, well-known for its rich culture and traditions that emphasize ahimsa, or non-violence, has been ranked the fourth most dangerous country in the world for women, according to a June 2011 Thomson Reuters Foundation poll of experts around the world. Experts attributed India's ranking primarily to female feticide, infanticide and human trafficking.

Sex-selective abortion has increased substantially in India, according to a 2011 study by the Center for Global Health Research in Toronto, Canada. Between 4.2 million and 12.1 million girls were aborted during the last three decades in India, according to the study.

After declining since 1901, India's national sex ratio, or number of females per 1,000 males, has increased slightly from 927 females in 1991, to 933 females in 2001, to 940 females in 2011, according to the national census. But the sex ratio in the population of children ages 0-6 has declined from 927 in 2001 to 914 in 2011.

Sex-selective abortion is illegal here, and the majority of Indians practice Hinduism, which opposes harming living things. Still, many Indians consider having a female child a curse for various social and economic reasons.

Female feticide is not restricted to any single social or economic group, according to the Ministry of Women and Child Development. But although the preference for boys exists across society, abortions are more likely to be carried about by wealthier and more educated parents, who are more aware of ultrasound technology that can check the sex of their babies and can afford abortions if they are girls, according to the Center for Global Health Research study.

Priya Pawar, 45, who requested her name be changed for privacy reasons, is the mother of a son and a daughter. She says her father didn't want to see her when she was born because she was a girl.

"My father was upset because I was born and hadn't come to see my mother and me in the hospital for many days," she says.


Another woman, Sara Paul, 27, is expecting a baby. A housewife from a well-educated, upper-middle-class family, Paul says she hopes her baby is a boy.

"I want a boy - not a girl," she says.


Paul says this is because boys have more access to opportunities than girls do in India.

"Because then he will get access to all the things that I was refrained from," she says.

According to the Ministry of Women and Child Development's Child Right Handbook, there is a common myth in India that daughters don't benefit their families.

"Bringing up a girl child is like watering a neighbour's garden," the handbook states. "You raise them up, protect them all through and also plan for their marriage and dowry till they are finally gone."

Indian families believe that sons, on the other hand, can take care of their families and, therefore, are more valuable and deserve more opportunities.

"Sons are at least there to carry forward the legacy of the family, take care of parents in their old age and perform the last rites," the handbook states, referring to a Hindu custom that only sons can perform the last rites for their parents before they die, which are essential for the parents' admission to heaven. "There is no point educating daughters, giving them freedom to do what they like and holding on to them till they grow up to be married off. All this only adds to the family burden."

Parents also say there is constant concern about the safety of daughters because of the risk of sexual abuse and rape.

Even though the dowry practice is now illegal, it is still prevalent in most economic classes, which makes daughters a financial burden. The daughter's parents must fulfill any demand of dowry - money, jewelry, furniture, vehicles, etc. - made by the son-in-law and his family before and after the wedding. If the demands are not fulfilled, then the girl is often tortured. Eventually the girl is forced to end the marriage and return to her parents or end her life.

On the other hand, the adverse sex ratio as a result of female feticide and infanticide has created marriage issues as well. The fall in the number of girls available for marriage has led to the sale of brides, which can result in the trafficking of the girl for sex or labor, according to the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

Under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, abortion is legal in India only if the birth would create a risk to the mother's or baby's health. Otherwise, abortion is a criminal offense, punishable by imprisonment and/or a fine.

The government passed the Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act in 1994 and amended it in 2003 to prevent sex-selective abortion. This act allows diagnostic tests to be performed only to determine abnormalities of an unborn baby, but prohibits it for sex determination.

Any person who seeks a prenatal diagnostic test on a pregnant woman or a pregnant woman who seeks it herself for the purpose of sex selection is liable to up to three years in prison and a fine of up to 50,000 rupees, $1,1,30 USD, according to the act. For subsequent convictions, the punishment increases to up to five years in prison and a fine of up to 100,000 rupees, $2,260 USD.

For medical practitioners who perform such tests for the purpose of sex selection, the punishment is a fine of up to 10,000 rupees, $225 USD, and up to three years in prison. The punishment increases to up to five years in prison and a fine of up to 50,000 rupees, $1,130 USD, for subsequent convictions. In addition, the State Medical Council will remove the medical practitioner's name from its register for five years after the first offense and permanently after a subsequent conviction.

A well-known doctor in Mumbai, who requested his name not be used to protect his job, says that there are various regulations that must be followed.

"It is mandatory for every sonography center to have a government rulebook, which states sex determination of [an] unborn child as a crime and to put up a board stating it," he says. "The doctors need to submit a photocopy [of every] sonography done by them to the government."

But he says some doctors find ways around these rules.

"However, this does not ensure that the doctors have not done the test because the doctors could do the sex determination of the unborn child without filing any situation," he says.

He says that the government should take strict actions against doctors who conduct these tests and that NGOs and other institutions should join government efforts to help enforce the law.

Pawar and another housewife, Moni Pal, 26, who also requested her name be changed because of the sensitivity of the topic, say that strict laws won't be of much help until the rudimentary mindsets of the people are changed. A large-scale program is necessary to change their mindsets, they say.

Even the government recognizes that current laws have been ineffective.

"Unfortunately, the existing provisions and current implementation mechanisms have failed to make any significant impact on the rising trend of female feticide," according to Girl Child in the Eleventh Five-Year Plan 2007-2012, a report by the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

The ministry report made various suggestions to strengthen the act within the existing provisions and under future amendments, expand the network of authorities involved, increase monitoring and surveillance and make penalties more stringent. It also cited the need for nationwide awareness and sensitization efforts in order to reverse traditional perspectives, such as setting aside funds for a media campaign.

State governments have also gotten involved in implementing various programs to eradicate the notion of girls as burdens. For example, the Haryana state government offers free education for girls and grants to families living below the poverty line on the occasion of their daughters' weddings, according to a 2011 state government report.

NGOs, such as Snehalaya and Population First, are also campaigning to reduce female feticide and infanticide in India.

Sarika Makude works for Snehalaya's Save the Girl Child project. She says that the Snehalaya volunteers organize programs every month in various villages to educate people about saving girls.

But she says that very few villagers take interest in these programs, resulting in low attendance. Makude encourages people interested in this project to get involved, adding that there are various ways to contribute.

The government aims to raise the sex ratio to 950 by 2017.

"Unless immediate action is taken on a national scale to change this [mindset], the girl child is on her way to utter deprivation, destitution and even extinction," according to the ministry report. "In other words the girl child is heading towards becoming an endangered species."

The Mumbai doctor says that increasing women's status is the only way to stop sex-selective abortion in India.

"No amount of education, rules and punishment can stop female feticide," he says. "It will stop only when the status of girls and women will be raised high in our society. In fact, her status should be more than that of the men. Only this will bring about a vigorous change."

Advocates say they hope that the country that worships many goddesses will one day begin to desire daughters, too.
 
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'Missing women' phenomenon getting worse in India

Gender balance improving in Bangladesh, Canadian-funded research study says

By Don Butler, Ottawa Citizen October 6, 2011



Religion partly explains why the phenomenon of "missing women" is getting worse in India, but has reversed course in neighbouring Bangladesh, according to new Canadian-funded research.

Thanks to female-selective abortion, infanticide, neglect and discriminatory access to health and nutrition, child sex ratios in mostly Hindu India have been growing more imbalanced. Among children, there are now 109 boys for every 100 girls, India's 2011 census found.

Moreover, adverse child sex ratios are spreading beyond the northwestern states and upper landed castes to other parts of India and other castes and social groups.

"We've all been quite concerned and mesmerized by this really quite appalling tragedy," said Naila Kabeer, co-author of a new report for the Ottawa-based International Development Research Centre.

However, the story is quite different in Muslim Bangladesh, the report says. There, a culture of strong son preference "appears to be giving way to a growing indifference to the sex of a child." Consequently, excess mortality among girls under five has virtually disappeared and the overall sex ratio is now balanced.

Kabeer, a professor at London University who will give a public talk on her findings today at 3 p.m. at IDRC's offices on Kent Street, said there were several reasons why sex ratios in Bangladesh had diverged from those in India.


Improved educational and employment opportunities for women are a big part of the explanation, she said, but differences between the Hindu and Muslim view of women and marriage also play a role.


While both religions view women as subordinate, Hinduism defines women as "ritually inferior, along with the untouchable castes," said Kabeer. "Women under Islam can at least inherit property. Women under Hinduism cannot."

However, the way in which marriage plays out in the two religions is more important, Kabeer said. Islam considers marriage a contract, with the terms and obligations clearly spelled out. After a divorce, women are entitled to financial support from their husbands.

By contrast, marriage is a sacrament under Hinduism. Divorce is difficult and widows aren't allowed to remarry. The caste system, which requires women to marry someone of higher status within their own caste, complicates matters. The payment of dowries can impoverish the parents of the bride. All this, said Kabeer, makes daughters an unwanted burden to Hindu families.

Caste doesn't exist in Bangladesh, and though the practice of dowry has emerged in the country, it's not part of the religion. In many marriages, no dowry is paid; when it is, it's generally far smaller than in India.

Within the Hindu caste system, the "worst and most discriminatory practices" are found among the upper landed classes, Kabeer said. "They have had the worst sex ratios for many years."

Still, as people in lower castes have become more prosperous, she said, "they are actually emulating those sections of the population with the worst practices. We are seeing the spread of dowry, the ban on remarriage, spreading to other castes and parts of India that did not used to practise these things before."

Though Bangladesh remains much poorer than India, poverty rates and family sizes have been dropping rapidly. The improvements have been driven by an expansion in education and economic opportunities for girls and women.

NGOs, which operate in almost every village in the country, have spread new, progressive ideas. "It has taken a discourse around gender equality and women's rights right down to the grassroots," Kabeer said.

More Bangladeshi women now have paid jobs, and many are getting access to microfinancing for their own small businesses, making them "a conduit through which a lot of money comes in."

At the same time, sons have become less reliable sources of support for their parents, often moving away and focusing on their own families, and are increasingly seen as spoiled and dissolute.

In Bangladesh, this has prompted what Kabeer calls "the rise of the daughter-in-law." Parents are now relying more on their female children and in-laws to care for them in their old age.

While many Indian parents use ultrasound to identify the sex of their unborn child - often terminating pregnancies if it's a girl - the same has not happened in Bangladesh. Ultrasound is common, but used mostly to assess health.

A lot of Bangladeshis believe there's a "government circular" forbidding them to ask about the gender of their child, Kabeer said. "But we did not find any evidence of any such government circular."

DISCUSSION

To register for Naila Kabeer's public talk at the International Development Research Centre today, email dcarvajal@idrc.ca
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

Read more: 'Missing women' phenomenon getting worse in India
 
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Situation for the woman in India is pretty worse indeed. UN and other countries should intervene immediately to save the woman from extinction and becoming an endangered species as the article has pointed out.

---------- Post added at 04:15 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:14 AM ----------

i am missing a few fellas here :whistle:

lol... well said bro.
 
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Situation for the woman in India is pretty worse indeed. UN and other countries should intervene immediately to save the woman from extinction and becoming an endangered species as the article has pointed out.

---------- Post added at 04:15 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:14 AM ----------



lol... well said bro.

Well thats our problem and a bad one.
But what about this
In India many Bangladeshi women are smuggled for prostitution.
You should stop that first.
 
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Well thats our problem and a bad one.
But what about this
In India many Bangladeshi women are smuggled for prostitution.
You should stop that first.

What woman trafficking has to do over here... obviously it is a big problem... n it is done by the syndicate of the Indians with active involvement of the BSF... n has nothing to do with the thread..

---------- Post added at 04:20 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:19 AM ----------

Dont know where are women right org are ? cant c them at horizon

India is busy in hiding such horrible condition of the woman with shining india hoax...
 
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Well thats our problem and a bad one.
But what about this
In India many Bangladeshi women are smuggled for prostitution.
You should stop that first.

Article and thread is not about BANGLADESH. u can read that
 
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What woman trafficking has to do over here... obviously it is a big problem... n it is done by the syndicate of the Indians with active involvement of the BSF... n has nothing to do with the thread..

---------- Post added at 04:20 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:19 AM ----------



India is busy in hiding such horrible condition of the woman with shining india hoax...

Why is Bangladesh giving their women for prostitution which you allege is being smuggled by BSF.
now i know who BSF shoots at the border i guess its pimp smugglers from Bangladesh.

---------- Post added at 03:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:23 PM ----------

Article and thread is not about BANGLADESH. u can read that

I am stating that nothing is hunky dory in this neighbourhood for us alone to be targeted.

---------- Post added at 03:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:25 PM ----------

Wrongly stated why does Bangladesh not do anything to stop trafficking of women into India and other neighbouring countries?
 
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Why is Bangladesh giving their women for prostitution which you allege is being smuggled by BSF.
now i know who BSF shoots at the border i guess its pimp smugglers from Bangladesh.

How many woman those who have been smuggled to India has been shoot??? Almost none... most of the people those who got shoot are poor farmer, cow trader and small childrens... who has nothing to do with illegal immigration... n cow traders got shoot cause they did not paid enough to BSF... If you look at the stat... each year more then 1 billion usd worth of cow smuggled to Bangladesh and even some come as far as from punjab... in comparison to that cow traders those who got shoot is very negligible and pointing to the fact that they did not pay their bribe to the BSF.

N for the woman smuggling it is done by Indians and to conduct this they have hired some Bangladeshi as their agent... who took the girls in 2 ways... by marrying then smuggled to india or lure them for better job... But none of these issue has anything to do over here.

Talk relevant topics... Condition of Bangladeshi girl is much better Then the indians... reason has been described in the second post by Ottawa Citizen. Read that.
 
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Bangladeshi has nothing to do with this thread,`` in terms of prositution i dont think any country has worse situation than india
'Trapped by tradition': Indian girls in town of Bharatpur born to be prostitute - What's On Tianjin

hard to believe in morden times, these barbaric things are still happening

I ain't saying we are good and everything is hunky dory here but the thread starter has a malicious intentions of opening thread against India's women!

So just reminding them about their status.

---------- Post added at 03:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:32 PM ----------

How many woman those who have been smuggled to India has been shoot??? Almost none... most of the people those who got shoot are poor farmer, cow trader and small childrens... who has nothing to do with illegal immigration... n cow traders got shoot cause they did not paid enough to BSF... If you look at the stat... each year more then 1 billion usd worth of cow smuggled to Bangladesh and even some come as far as from punjab... in comparison to that cow traders those who got shoot is very negligible and pointing to the fact that they did not pay their bribe to the BSF.

N for the woman smuggling it is done by Indians and to conduct this they have hired some Bangladeshi as their agent... who took the girls in 2 ways... by marrying then smuggled to india or lure them for better job... But none of these issue has anything to do over here.

Talk relevant topics... Condition of Bangladeshi girl is much better Then the indians... reason has been described in the second post by Ottawa Citizen. Read that.

Tiki Tam Tam in one of a super thread started by a Bangladeshi just like this snubbed him by posting data about Menstrual problems and unhygienic related disease from that.
searching for it.
 
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