MADRAS, INDIA, February 9, 2005: A good birth in a female body is rarer than it should be in the Salem District of Tamil Nadu. A mixture of attitudes and social customs has made it very difficult for families to raise a female child. Some are either aborted before birth or poisoned soon after birth. The article explains, “A daughter is considered an economic burden. Pressure to conform can be intense in rural areas, and some families borrow heavily to pay for the rituals prescribed for a girl – the ear-piercing ceremony, wedding jewelry, dowry, and presents for the groom’s family on every Hindu festival. The consequence of female infanticide and, more recently, abortion, is India’s awkwardly skewed gender ratio, among the most imbalanced in the world. The ratio among children up to the age of 6 was 962 girls per 1,000 boys in 1981, but 20 years later the inequity was actually worse: 927 girls per 1,000 boys.” Ajay K. Tripathi of the Advanced Studies in Public Health Programme, of the Institute of Health Systems in Hyderabad, says, “Factors like dowry, imbalance in the employment sector whereby the male is seen as breadwinner, and societal pressure to abort female fetuses conspire to increase the antigirl bias. Government and the medical profession need to put more resources – and more political will – into strengthening and enforcing the laws.”
Even though there has been legislation in place for decades to stop infanticide and sex-selective abortions, very little has been done to stop the practise. Puneet Bedi, a gynecologist at Apollo Hospitals in New Delhi, comments about the proposed amendment of the 1994 law that would prohibit all genetic-counseling facilities, clinics, and labs from divulging the sex of the fetus, “Abortions are a low-risk, high-profit business. As a specialist in fetal medicine, I can tell you that no pregnant woman would suffer if the ultrasound test were banned. Right now, it is used to save 1 out of 20,000 fetuses and kill 20 out of every 100 because [it reveals that the baby] is the wrong gender.”
Others such as the Community Services Guild are attacking the problem from a different perspective. For 20 years the CSG has been trying to teach mothers and daughters skills such as basket weaving or selling produce so that they are considered viable members of the family. G. Prasad, CSG deputy director says, “Educating the new-generation girl – and empowering her with the skills necessary for economic independence – is the only long-term solution.” Efforts have also been made by the Tamil Nadu government and the news release explains, “The Tamil Nadu government has started several programs to protect girls – with mixed results. One urged families to hand over their baby girls to local officials, who saw that they were adopted by childless couples. Between May, 2001, and January, 2003, officials received 361 baby girls. An informal survey by CSG, however, found that many women would abort rather than have a baby and give her up for adoption. Tamil Nadu’s “Girl Protection” program may be more practical. Here, the government opens a bank account in a girl’s name at her birth, depositing between US$340 and $500 during her childhood, depending on the number of girls in the family.”
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