The title above is a deliberately ironic comment on what is a serious issue. We all remember those movies about infanticide. The ones showing babies being plunged in tubs of water. It’s over, isn’t it. Well, yes, infanticide has been illegal for quite some time in India. But statistics are telling another story.
The gender imbalance in favour of boys is growing in India, not declining. How could this be! In some parts of India the ratio is as low as 400 girls to every 1000 boys, despite the official statistics. There is something going on. And, yes, infanticide is now no longer practised as it was. No more tubs of water. Instead, what is called foeticide is the cause of the gender imbalance.
Modern technology has come to India in the form of relatively inexpensive ultrasound scanning devices. They are manufactured by Phillips in Bangalore and are very affordable. All over India clinics are sprouting up that assist parents in determining the sex of their unborn children. It is against the law for a doctor to inform parents of the sex of their unborn child. But there are work arounds. If the doctor says, for example, “you have reasons to throw a big party”, this is coded language for a boy-child. And there are many other commonly understood informal codes.
For religious and economic reasons there is a prejudice in many South Asian countries against girl children. Girls are expensive. They require dowries when they get married. They leave the home to go elsewhere. And they cost money because of their education. One Indian proverb has it: “To give birth to a girl-child is to water your neighbour’s garden!” In a France Culture radio report (March 11th, 2009) a doctor in Delhi stated that he is only one of six out of forty thousand Delhi doctors who refuse systematically to perform abortions in the case of girl children.
And what about rural India? Well, it turns out that in rural India the prejudice against girl children leads to parents carrying out infanticide by an indirect means. According to the same France Culture report an Indian human rights activist said that girl children are often neglected, under-nourished and obliged to do heavy adult work. The result: they die. Infanticide by slow death.
The killing of women exists in various forms in societies the world over. However, Indian society displays some unique and particularly brutal versions, such as dowry deaths and sati. Female foeticide is an extreme manifestation of violence against women. Female foetuses are selectively aborted after pre-natal sex determination, thus avoiding the birth of girls. As a result of selective abortion, between 35 and 40 million girls and women are missing from the Indian population. In some parts of the country, the sex ratio of girls to boys has dropped to less than 800:1,000. The United Nations has expressed serious concern about the situation.
International Human and Ethical Union 2009
What you are reporting is terrible!
It is so sad.
Thank you, Daniela. I could not believe myself what I heard on the French radio broadcast so I checked out the facts on the web. It is a clear human rights issue that we need to keep in focus. Ciao!
see The Economist of March 6
cover story — What Happened to 100 Million Baby Girls?