The Hindu Business Line : Why `she' still remains unwanted

A plea that falls on deaf ears: Contrary to perception, the educated, urban rich yearn for a son even more than their poorer counterparts in rural India.

A CONFERENCE on sex selection diagnosis and female foeticide in Goa last week brought to light the disturbing proof of India holding one half of its population — actually somewhat less, as revealed by the Census 2001 — in low esteem.

At the media sensitisation conference organised by the Centre for Advocacy Research (CFAR) and the Centre for Women's Development and Studies (CWDS), the participants — women activists, census officials, NGO representatives and obstetricians — agonised over a single question: Why do Indians, particularly the urban and prosperous segments, hold women in such low esteem that they resort to the heinous practice of female foeticide through sex-selective abortion?

According to CWDS' Dr Sabu George, who has been researching the phenomenon of female infanticide and female foeticide for a decade now, there are over 25,000 registered ultrasound scan centres in the country. And a technology "that was intended to detect genetic disorders in the foetus is now being grossly misused by an unethical medical community for sex selection." A sifting of the Census 2001 data, which record a fall in the child sex ratio from 1945 girls for 1,000 boys in 1991 (in 1981 the figure was 962) to 921 girls in 2001, shows that the missing girls (who were not allowed to be born) are more from the urban than the rural areas.

For instance, the lower child sex ratios are reported from places like Ahmedabad — the city made prosperous by the enterprising spirit and business acumen of Gujaratis. There are only 814 girls (0 to 6 years) for every 1,000 boys. And in the South-West Delhi area the figure is a shameful 845. In Hyderabad, the sex ratio has fallen by 21 points in the last decade, as its Collector, Mr Arvind Kumar, points out.

In Rajasthan, where the `son preference' is all-pervasive, and believed by population experts to be one of the major obstacles to reducing fertility levels, the sex ratio in the rural areas is 932 girls to 1,000 boys, compared to 890 girls to 1,000 boys in urban Rajasthan, according to the 2001 Census.

Even across States, it is in the more prosperous ones that child sex ratios have crashed; in Punjab the ratio fell from 875 girls to 1,000 boys in 1991 to 793:1000 in 2001; in Haryana the corresponding figures are 879 and 820; Gujarat 928 and 878; Delhi 915 and 865; Himachal Pradesh 951 and 897 and Rajasthan 916 and 909. The much-maligned State of Bihar has done better than the last in the list, with 916 girls for 1,000 boys. But, overall, and in many other States, the girl-boy ratio has fallen a whopping 50 points.

As speaker after speaker stressed at the Goa conference, it is not the deadly combination of poverty and illiteracy or ignorance that drives the son obsession. For it is the educated and the rich who yearn for a son much more than their poorer counterparts in rural India.

Addressing one of the sessions, Ms Abha Bhaiya, from the NGO Jagori, warned against any complacency about the educated being more enlightened. Dr Elizabeth, an obstetrician from St John's Medical Hospital, Bangalore, pointed out that even in prosperous urban areas where the women were well educated, they were being ill-treated within the home; "the career women are expected to work both at home and outside the home."

Dowry was recognised as one of the prime reasons for the unwanted girl child and one of the delegates pointed out that the media celebration of marriages of celebrity children, either from the corporate world or that of film and fashion, was sending out wrong signals.

As, by convention, the parents of the bride were expected to bear the entire expenditure for the marriage and give a handsome dowry to the bridegroom, "by celebrating ostentatious marriages and highlighting the expensive gifts given through dowry, you are frightening a whole host of people that they too will be expected to do the same when it comes to getting their daughters married. This makes people ask: why wait for that ordeal; why not kill the daughter in the womb? How does one counter that argument?"

Ms Abha Bhaiya said the entire issue of the missing girls was very complex and "I am not able to put my finger on why we are such a woman-hating society." On the misuse of technology for gender-specific abortion, she said this area needed to be approached cautiously because it could put in jeopardy a woman's right to MTP (medical termination of pregnancy) which was connected with the right to her own body and reproduction in circumstances where she had no say on how many children she could conceive.

"And what about women's rights to ancestral land? The dowry system will not go unless women have resources of their own. Women today do not have rights over land including agricultural land. How can we continue talk about women's empowerment unless we address economic issues that give them real empowerment," she asked.

Another disturbing point that came up repeatedly at the conference was the kind of stranglehold that the home and the institution of marriage had on the Indian woman. "It appears that the home is the place where she is harassed the most; most Indian women can call neither their parental home nor that of their in-laws their own in the truest sense of the word. Indian society glorifies marriage, but the extent of declining sex ratio indicates that a very large percentage of the population is being murdered within that institution," said Ms Bhaiya.

In this context, she said that women's groups and civil society would have to think seriously and come out with answers on what kind of education should be given to women. "We don't know today what kind of education will help, or what kind of access to knowledge she should have. What we do know is that what we already have is of little help. So let's not make the same mistake."

Giving the example of Kerala, which is touted for it socio-economic indicators and high literacy levels among women, she said the same State also reports a very high incidence of violence against women.

"If there is such great equality and such great economic empowerment of women in Kerala, how come the biggest sex scandals are erupting in that State? We need to review our strategies and agendas and look at the whole issue in a comprehensive manner and take a multi-causal approach; it is not only dowry, not only illiteracy or globalisation that is devaluing women in this country. But they are all linked in this very complex issue and unless we make these linkages, we won't be able to come out with satisfactory strategies to correct the increasing imbalance in the sex ratio," Ms Bhaiya added.

The conference also highlighted the unethical manner in which many doctors running ultrasound clinics encouraged parents to come in for sex selection and abortion based on the test.

NGO representatives said that a couple of times they had gone with decoys and got evidence that the doctor or the sonologist had revealed the sex of the foetus in total violation of the PNDT — Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act — but sometimes on technical, legal points and at other times because of their influence with the local authorities in charge of enforcing the Act, the erring doctors were able to get away.

Wondering at the presence of mobile scan units in remote areas like the Chambal ravines or tribal belts of Rajasthan, Dr George said that once "a few such clinics go and provide services in these areas, the local doctors feel why should outsiders make money and why not us. We've found in Andhra, where the scan machines came much later than in Tamil Nadu, that if one doctor buys the machine, others follow suit because they are afraid if they refer one pregnancy to that doctor, all other pregnancies will go there too. I would say female foeticide is rampant because the medical profession is promoting it to make money."

The CFAR Director, Ms Akhila Sivadas, who has been organising a string of such workshops, underlined the importance of enabling the media to carry out "evidence-based reportage through such dedicated sensitisation. In a complex issue like female foeticide, there are multiple linkages and unless we sit and brainstorm on all the connected issues, our response to this malaise will not be effective."

(Response can be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in)