'Desperate to Bear a Boy': Illegal Fetal Tests Subvert Indian Government's Bid to Improve Sex Ratio
11:35 GMT 11.08.2021 (Updated: 20:02 GMT 19.10.2022)
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India is fighting a strong bias against girls that has led to a skewed sex ratio. The last Population Census done in 2011 showed the nation’s sex ratio as 943 girls per 1,000 boys, with states like Haryana, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh recording a dismal ratio of less than 900 girls per 1,000 boys.
The police in India’s Uttar Pradesh state on Tuesday arrested a man in Lucknow, two years after he dumped his newborn daughter in the bushes.
Though rescued at the time by passers-by who handed her over to the police, the abandoned baby girl died months later of respiratory complications.
The incident has once again shed light on how the obsession with having a male child in India is frustrating the efforts of the government to save girls to improve the country’s dismal sex ratio.
Despite decades of public awareness campaigns to value girl children by state or central governments, the bias remains a constant worry.
Beti Bachao Beti Padhao is a very useful scheme for all girls of urban and rural areas #BJPMahilaMorcha #betibachaobetipadhao pic.twitter.com/JjoAGDjVSF
— Nitya Pareek (@NityaPareek1) August 4, 2021
Women Used As Sex Machines To Deliver Boys: Activist
Geeta Devi, a resident of Bhiwani district in the state of Haryana, is today a mother of four daughters and a son. The boy is the youngest.
After her fourth delivery, doctors warned her not to bear another child, as she had developed many health complications.
“But I succumbed to family pressure to have another child in the desperate hope that on the fifth time, a boy will be born,” she told Sputnik.
Sikkim Nain is an Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) in India’s Haryana state. Based out of one of the most remote areas in the State’s Jind District, she says that village women are treated as “sex machines to deliver boys with no regard whatsoever to their own wishes or health status”.
Sikkim Nain counselling village women in Haryana state about the need to save the girl child
© Photo : Sikkim Nain
Nain shared she is generally flooded with queries from pregnant women offering huge amounts of money just to procure any medicine which could ensure the birth of a boy.
“They ask me if I can assist them in sex selection procedures,” she told Sputnik.
Speaking about the most common “tips” generally offered to naturally conceive a male child, Nain said, “elderly women in villages have beliefs like eating the seed inside coconut during the first month of pregnancy ensures birth of a male child. Some elderly women also advise against conceiving during the time when moon is waning, as it is believed that it results into a girl child being born,” she added.
Violators of Regulations Keep Government Authorities on Their Toes
Indian law prohibits medical professionals from revealing the sex of an unborn child, and gender tests are banned under the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Test Act of 1996.
Violation of this law can invite a stringent action against the medical staff and the couples trying to find out the gender before birth.
The prohibited scan test is considered a major reason for illegal abortions to eliminate female fetuses, which has led to a skewed sex ratio.
In July alone, police and health authorities exposed six rackets and arrested several people, including doctors.
It was found that they were illegally determining the sex of a fetus with the use of ultrasound scans and communicating the information to the parents-to-be.
“The modus operandi of the violators is simple,” says GL Singhal, project co-ordinator of the Beti Bachao Beti Padho (Save Girl, Educate Girl) programme in Haryana state.
Singhal said they have caught repeat offenders who load a portable ultrasound machine on their two-wheeler vehicle and target potential customers in remote areas.
“They get their clients -- the couples – who are desperate to know the gender of the fetus, in connivance with local health practitioners,” Singhal told Sputnik. “Couples, who are eager to have a male child, are willing to pay them any amount to get the illegal scan done. It is a lucrative business for them,” he added.
Incidentally, both Haryana and Uttar Pradesh are among the worst performing states when it comes to the issue of correcting skewed sex ratio.
Boatman rescues newborn baby girl dumped in box in River Ganges https://t.co/rxxIC9arUm
— Hello Nice World (@HelloNiceWorld2) June 18, 2021
