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The Global Persecution of Women
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China
”China restates hard line on baby trafficking,” New York Times, 15 July 2004.
China, which introduced a one-child policy in the 1970s, restated yesterday its hard line on trafficking in children and its ban on selective sex abortions.
The sale of women and children has become a nationwide problem in China, where stringent rules on family planning still restrict couples to having just one child, at least in the cities, and limit numbers elsewhere.
The one-child policy has been blamed for upholding the traditional bias for male offspring, especially in rural areas, and triggering a surge in selective abortion, child trafficking and killing of female infants.
“Criminal acts of trafficking, maltreatment and abandonment of female infants must be punished with severity, and illegal sex determination and sex selective abortion must be strictly banned,” Zhao Baige, deputy director of the National Population and Family Planning Commission of China, told a conference.
China has also launched a “Girl Care” project, designed to protect the rights and interests of girls.
Chinese police had arrested 95 members of a gang in Inner Mongolia for trafficking 76 babies, the China Daily said on Wednesday.
In November, a court in the southern province of Guangxi sentenced two people to death and jailed dozens for smuggling more than 100 babies in one of China’s poorest provinces.
The UN Children’s Fund said that about 250,000 women and children were victims of trafficking in China last year.
Official figures in March showed police had freed 42,215 kidnapped women and children in 2002 and 2003 and analysts say that could be just the tip of the iceberg.
Howard W. French, “As Girls ‘Vanish,’ Chinese City Battles Tide of Abortions,” New York Times, 17 Feb. 2005.
Chinese planners appear to have underestimated the urge of couples to have sons, … a desire that drives many to desperate lengths. And a result has been a human and public health disaster, with the large-scale abortion of female fetuses and the routine killing or abandonment of baby girls.
Joe McDonald, “By 2020, China could have 40 million more men than women,” Associated Press, 11 May 2004.
Limited to one child, many couples abort or kill baby girls in hopes of trying again to have a boy, valued by Chinese culture as a way to carry on the family name and to look after parents in their old age.
”China’s ‘gendercide’ crisis. One-child policy to create shortage of workers,” WorldNetDaily.com, 17 Feb. 2004.
China increasingly is developing a population dominated by males. This … is a direct offshoot of the one-child policy, which has resulted in the "disappearance" of millions of girls – most of whom are assumed to have been killed at birth or shortly afterward, while others were the victims of sex-selection abortion procedures. Many other young girls are put up for foreign adoption. Two-thirds of Chinese children put up for adoption are female.
… the World Health Organization released a report at WHO's Regional Committee for the Western Pacific that said more than 50 million women were estimated to be "missing" in China because of the institutionalized killing and neglect of girls due to Beijing's population control program that limits parents to one child.
Many of the girls were killed while still in the womb – the victims of ultrasound technology that revealed the baby's sex. Others, WHO said, were starved to death after birth, the victims of violence or were not treated when they became ill.
The report's statistics showed that in 1994, 117 boys were born for every 100 girls in China. That is the same ratio today in China – 10 years later. Though baby girls tend to have a higher survival rate than boys, that natural process has been dramatically reversed in China by infanticide, gross neglect, maltreatment and malnutrition of females in a culture that regards boys as more desirable – especially when couples get only one chance at parenthood.
The trend transcends the infancy stage, too, the report shows. Girls are at higher risk than boys of dying before the age of 5 in China – despite their natural biological advantages.
"In many cases, mothers are more likely to bring their male children to health centers – particularly to private physicians – and they may be treated at an earlier stage of disease than girls," the paper reported.
WHO documented what can only be described as the biggest single holocaust in human history – and doing it in a surprisingly clinical and low-key fashion. ...
China now has the world's highest gender disparity among newborns: 117 boys are born for every 100 girls. That is well above the natural ratio of 105 boys for every 100 girls (the ratio in the United States). In some parts of China and India the imbalance is almost as high as three boys for every two girls. Across Asia, the gender imbalance translates into millions of "missing" girls.
Officially, the government of China has banned the use of ultrasound to determine gender. But the laws are hard to enforce, because the women who take the tests and the doctors who perform them keep them secret. ...
Some Chinese couples who want a boy simply choose to abandon female infants to die.
Human Rights in China, Report on Implementation of CEDAW in the People’s Republic of China. Dec. 1998.
The government [of China] has not produced a satisfactory accounting of what is happening to these missing girls, but sex-selective abortion, infanticide, neglect, abandonment and non-registration are responsible in unknown proportions.
India
“80% of India's districts have declining sex ratios,” One World South Asia, 3 Jan. 2007.
In another indication of just how serious the problem of missing girl-children in India really is, a new report by Unicef finds that child sex ratios have declined in all but three Indian states and union territories.
India already abysmal sex ratio figures are getting worse by the day, with 80% of its districts recording declining child sex ratios since 1991, as thousands of girl-children are killed before or at birth. This is according to a new report by Unicef on the global status of children. Kerala, Pondicherry and the Lakshadweep islands are the only exceptions to this rule.
The all-India sex ratio is 927 girls for 1,000 boys, which puts the country right at the bottom of the global charts, worse off than countries like Nigeria (965) and neighbour Pakistan (958). According to the report, only China -- with whom, ironically, India is competing in the economic growth sweepstakes -- with 832 girls per 1,000 boys ranks below India.
Unsurprisingly, the state of Punjab is cited as the worst offender -- the ratio has dropped from 875 in 1991 to 798 girls for every 1,000 boys in 2001, says ‘State of the World’s Children 2007’ the UN children’s agency annual report recently released.
Haryana, which records a sharp 60-point drop, from 879 girls in 1991 to 819 in 2001, is a close second. Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal, all in north India, are other states where girl-children are largely unwanted. Delhi, the nation’s capital, has witnessed a 47-point drop, from 915 girls to 868 in 2001. Even in ‘globalised’ Bangalore, the ratio of girls to boys is just 811 to 1,000.
One surprise entry on this list is Arunachal Pradesh where the sex ratio has dropped from 982 girls to 964, from 1991 to 2001.
The state of Kerala, where the sex ratio has increased marginally from 958 girls in 1991 to 960, Pondicherry and Lakshadweep present the only exceptions to this dismal rule.
The worsening in the country’s hugely skewed sex ratio is largely due to misuse of pre-natal diagnostic techniques, despite stringent laws banning their use for sex selection and the consequent increase in cases of female foeticide, say experts.
This could be the reason why the incidence of female foeticide seems more prevalent in urban areas -- despite higher levels of education and affluence -- as compared to villages. In Punjab, the number of girls in rural areas is 799 per 1,000 boys, compared with a grimmer 796 in urban zones. “In prosperous states like Punjab and Haryana, people have both access and money to misuse technology,” says a source.
“Advanced science and technology has had its adverse effects,” says Donna Fernandis of the Vimochana Forum for Women’s Rights, adding that sex selection was one instance of how technology, in a globalised economy, had “dragged even the foetus to the marketplace”. “For instance in Mandya, in Karnataka, where the sex ratio is abysmally low, sex determination tests are done for Rs 10,000,” she explains.
‘State of the World’s Children 2007’ is a scathing indictment of the efforts of both the central and state governments to enforce laws against sex selective abortions, as well as the killing of newborn girls. Campaigns to encourage people to view girl-children as socially and economically desirable do not seem to have made much of an impact either.
Ranjana Kumari of the Centre for Social Research says: “It is not just the concern of the health ministry but of every department in the government. Tackling this requires a sensitisation campaign along the lines of the HIV/AIDS (campaign).
”Girl Abortions May Total 10 Million,” Aviva, 9 Jan. 2006.
As many as 10 million female fetuses may have been aborted in India over the past 20 years as families try to secure a male heir, according to a study published in The Lancet, the British medical journal. In the two decades since the wide availability of ultrasound equipment, which allows prenatal determination of sex, the number of girls born in India has declined steeply, despite a law banning doctors from revealing the sex of a fetus to parents.
Although the routine aborting of female fetuses has been widely documented, the study puts new light on the scale of the practice. Experts in India said that they hoped the study would prompt the government to enforce the laws against the practice that are already on the books.
Campaigners have been trying to alert the government to the potential long-term social impact of the phenomenon warning that, among other problems, it will make it harder for men to find wives. In China, where a one-child policy is strictly enforced, prenatal sex selection has resulted in an estimated 40 million bachelors.
"We conservatively estimate that prenatal sex determination and selective abortion accounts for 0.5 million missing girls yearly," Dr. Prabhat Jha, a public health professor at the University of Toronto, who headed the research team, said in a statement. "If this practice has been common for most of the past two decades since access to ultrasound became widespread, then a figure of 10 million missing female births would not be unreasonable."
The preference for sons has distorted the gender ratio throughout India. As ultrasound equipment becomes cheaper, allowing more and more Indian clinics to purchase it, the gender imbalance in the population has grown greater. In 1991 there were some 945 women for every 1,000 men. The ratio dropped to 927 females per 1,000 males in 2001. The team found that parents were more likely to abort a female fetus if the previous child had been a girl. Basing their conclusions on an ongoing Indian national survey of 133,738 births, the researchers concluded that in families where the first child was a girl, the ratio of girls to boys among second children was 759 girls per 1,000 boys - a reflection of the efforts made by families to ensure that at least one of their children was male.
Professor Shirish Sheth, of the Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai, India, wrote in a commentary on the findings: "Daughters are regarded as a liability, because she will eventually belong to the family of her future husband, expenditure on her will benefit others. In some communities where the custom of dowry prevails, the cost of her dowry could be phenomenal."
The study found that religion played no role in the phenomenon, but that well-educated and better-off families were more likely to find ways of breaking the law on prenatal sex selection. Despite the ban in 1994 on revealing the sex of a fetus, the law is widely ignored and there is little attempt to enforce it. In theory, pregnant women who seek help for sex selection could face a 3-year prison sentence and a 50,000 rupee, or $1,100 fine, while doctors can have their medical license suspended, but no case has yet come to court.
Dr. Sabhu George, who has been researching the phenomenon for the past 21 years, said the data from the study did not surprise him. "Over the next five years, we could see over one million fetuses eliminated every year," George said. "The future is frightening." Source: ITH, 9.1.06.
British Home Office, “India,” Country of Origin Information Report, 2006.
6.404 As reported by BBC News on 22 January 2005:
“In some parts of India there are so few women that men are having to look away from home to secure a bride. In the worst affected state of the Punjab there are fewer than eight girls to ten boys. Experts blame the outlawed practice of female foeticide (aborting female babies) for the skewed male/female ratio and say that almost a million girl foetuses have been killed because culture and tradition state that boy babies are preferable. In India, girls can be viewed as a burden, not least because many still believe a family must provide a dowry for their daughter’s marriage – even though this practice is now illegal. There is also widespread belief that the family is continued through the male line and an interpretation of Hinduism that says the father’s last rites must be carried out by his son.” ...“Dr Saarda Jain, from the Indian Medical Association, based in New Delhi, said that although the practice of female foeticide was banned in practice that it was still flourishing in certain areas.” He commented that although it is condemned as a crime it is still being carried out. According to the article there is great cause for concern about the female/male ratio in India which is dropping rapidly. “In 1991 there were 945 female to 1,000 males, but by 2001 that was just 927… It is a very male dominated society.” Dr Saarda Jain stated that the statute is not making much difference where even the educated and elite are involved in female foeticide.
Asit Joly, “Gory tale of Punjab's lost girls,” BBC News, 18 August 2006.
The government in India's Punjab state is investigating the possible involvement of state officials in setting up illegal clinics and ultrasound centres accused of female foeticide.
Last week, a surprise raid by police and health officials in the town of Patran in Patiala district unearthed a 10-metre (30-foot) well - located behind a private clinic - which contained the remains of at least 50 female foetuses.
The discovery provoked the largest ever campaign against female foeticide across the state's 23 districts.
Punjab has the lowest sex ratio in the country and there are 776 girls for every 1,000 boys in the state up to the age of six years.
All district and local officials have been instructed by the government to carry out regular surprise checks on clinics and centres offering ultrasound testing, Dr Harinder Rana, the state's director of health services and family welfare, said.
"We are very serious about sorting out this problem," she said.
The owners of Sahib Hospital in Patran were arrested last Wednesday.
They have been charged on various counts under laws prohibiting pre-natal sex-determination tests and termination of pregnancy, where the unborn child is known to be a girl.
Gory discovery
Galvanised into action by the horrifying spectacle of decomposing foetuses and subsequent reports in local newspapers and television channels, squads of police and health officials conducted simultaneous raids on dozens of private hospitals and ultrasound centres.
The raids are specifically targeting smaller clinics, many located in nondescript, small townships and settlements, like Sahib Hospital.
"I have directed my men to seal all unauthorised hospitals and diagnostic centres," the civil surgeon responsible for health services in the district, Virender Singh Mohi, said.
"Regular, monthly raids are being made mandatory so that we can remain on top of things."
And even though the raids - conducted across Punjab and a few locations in the neighbouring state of Haryana - have so far failed to yield any results, officials are firm on carrying the campaign forward.
Acting on information given by a midwife, Puja, who first blew the whistle on the allegedly illegal activities at Sahib Hospital, police and health officials excavated a second deep well on the premises of Sahib Hospital last Friday.
After digging for six hours, workers recovered what appeared to be numerous skeletal remains of babies and several pieces of blood-soaked cloth.
These have been collected and sent for analysis at a government medical college.
'Vested interests'
Meanwhile, some officials associated with this drive have received death threats.
Mr Mohi told the police he received several phone calls in which people threatened to kill him if he continued the raids on private hospitals.
"There are very strong and influential vested interests in keeping this illegal practice going in Punjab," he said.
Darshan Kumar Singla, a local journalist in Patran, says "although everyone is aware this is illegal, most people do not think anything about aborting a female child and trying again for a boy.
"Female foeticide is rampant in all the small towns here. Most nursing homes do such work at night and everybody - the police, the health authorities and the civil administration - knows this is happening.
"Everyone is now sitting up and taking note only because the foetuses in the well became too public to ignore," he said.
Pritam Singh, the owner of Sahib Hospital who is under arrest, also agrees that people prefer boys and would do anything to ensure the birth of a son.
"The primary cause is the popular mindset. Ultrasound centres and nursing homes only respond to the people's need out of greed.
"The only thing that could really end this problem is a firm end to the system of dowry," Mr Singh said from his cell at the local police station.
'War'
People in Punjab have traditionally shown a preference for sons, which experts say is driven by both an intensely patriarchal mindset and the system of dowry. Adult men here substantially outnumber women.
Experts say this sharply skewed trend is highly dangerous.
Pramod Kumar, who heads the Institute for Development and Communication in the capital, Chandigarh, says although the recovery of foetuses at Patran and subsequent raids across the state are significant, this cannot be a sustaining solution to the age-old problem.
"Enforcement without accompanying cultural and social interventions will merely serve to push the problem below the ground.
"The single-focus approach of widespread police action will only make sex determination tests and illegal abortions more surreptitious and expensive. This will not end the problem," he said.
The police raids are nevertheless continuing and Mr Mohi says he has declared a "war" on female foeticide.
"India," DOS Report 2005.
Although the law prohibits and the government conducted programs to limit the use of amniocentesis and sonogram tests for sex determination, NGOs in the area reported that some family planning centers in the state reveal the sex of fetuses. Both female infanticide and selective feticide targeting female babies occurred during the year as the traditional preference for male children continued. The government did not enforce effectively the law prohibiting termination of a pregnancy for sexual preference. In May the health minister stated to parliament that there were no feticide-related convictions in the past eight years.” [2c] (Section 4)
V.G. Julie Rajan, “Will India's Ban on Prenatal Sex Determination Slow Abortion of Girls?” Hinduism Today, downloaded from http://www.hinduwomen.org/issues/infanticide.htm, 2 Nov. 2006.
Dowry Drives the Deaths as Ultrasound-Equipped Trucks Ply Villages Pitching the Spiel, "Spend 500 Rupees Now, Save Five Lakhs Later"
United Nations statistics estimate that in 1995 the Indian sexual ratio was 106.9 males per 100 women--having slowly increased from 102.9 in 1901. Approximately fifty million women are "missing" in the Indian population.
Generally three principle causes are given: female infanticide, better food and health care for boys and maternal death at childbirth. The situation is similar in China and other Asian and Middle Eastern countries. Prenatal sex determination and the abortion of female fetuses threatens to skew the sex ratio to new highs--with unknown consequences. One source states that worldwide fully 42% of all unborn girls are aborted, compared to 25% of boys. Recognizing and seeking to control this perilous trend, the government of India outlawed prenatal sex determination on January 1st, 1996. The new law makes it illegal to advertise or perform the tests (with a few exceptions), and punishes the doctor, relatives who encourage the test and the woman herself with fines from ten to fifty thousand rupees and jail terms from three to five years.
The problem has arisen in just the past two decades. Prenatal techniques for sex determination were introduced into India only in the early seventies. Although touted officially as an aid in reducing genetic defects, much of the Indian public has turned to these tests to find out if "It's a boy" or not. It is an incidental irony that women are "blamed" for delivering baby girls, when it is now established medical fact that the man's semen always determines the child's sex.
At first, mostly affluent women had access to prenatal tests. When the non-invasive and cheaper technique of ultrasound was introduced twenty years ago, Indian families quietly turned to it to fulfill the desire for sons. Before the law came into effect, an alarming number of pregnancies underwent these simple tests as more and more couples customized the make-up of their families by terminating unwanted fetuses. It's a gut-wrenching fact that in a patriarchal country like India, where sons are prized and daughters devalued in society for a variety of reasons, it is likely that couples will choose to abort only females. In fact, on January 6, 1994, an episode of "ABC News PrimeTime Live," a weekly television news journal shown in the United States, it was estimated--guessed, really, since accurate figures are unavailable--that over three thousand female fetuses are aborted every day in India--one million per year.
For and Against
The proliferation, and increasingly reported abuse, of prenatal testing has forced an impassioned debate throughout India. Those fighting against the tests cite studies which suggest that further skewing of the sex ratio may only make worse the status of women, with an obvious negative impact on the whole nation.
Dr. Vibhudi Patel, a former professor of SNDT Women's University in Bombay who has studied the movements of the working class women, notes that this petitioning against sex selective abortions began only in the 1980s, about fifteen years after the techniques of sex determination were widely introduced into the country. "When the women's group took initiative...first it was basically through petitioning, then later through health departments," she relates. "When commercial news of the tests became widespread, many women activists and health activists noticed them." Dr. Patel explains that anti-selective abortion efforts grew to significance when it was discovered that even working class women and middle class women were using such tests. However, Selective abortion is too recent a development to have yet significantly affected the overall male/female ratio.
On the other hand, there is a great deal of public support in India from pro-sex selective abortion advocates who feel that these tools are helping families to cope with intransigent problems, especially dowry. Health clinics, buoyed by record profits, are aggressively selling their wares. One clever economic pitch blares from tens of thousands of billboards through the country--"Pay five hundred rupees [US$14.00] now rather than five lakhs [Rs500,000 or $14,000] later." Poor families, fearing expensive dowries that can cripple a family, willing undergo the tests.
Even though such advertisements were banned in several states before, Dr. Patel notes that sex determination tests and abortions are still advertised, though less blatantly. "Everybody knows about it. Most of the advertisements are written in regional languages. They use very sketchy sentences and words and slogans," describes Dr. Patel. "Even among working class people and tribal populations, most of the health circles have patriarchal biases for medical, social purposes and for psychiatric purposes in the hospitals while counseling pregnant women. I use to go for training for health care workers, and they [pro-selective abortion health care workers] would openly and aggressively boast about it. They would say that we feminists are unrealistic; that we don't understand the life of common women."
Not surprisingly, pro-selective abortion activists feel that selective abortion has several merits important for the good of the general Indian public. For example, advocates argue that selective abortion is the answer to population control. Perhaps they feel that in a country where families are willing to have child after child until they have their desired number of sons and daughters, sex selective abortions would allow women to choose the makeup of their family while keeping the family size small. Another argument in terms of population control is that families should be balanced; selective abortions will allow families to balance their desire for a daughter with one for a son.
Due to the social preference of sons, the survival of many families is hinged on the birth of a son. Proponents feel that selective abortion helps women overcome some of their insecurities and burdens, noting that women who produce sons have marriages that are happier and less toilsome, and husbands who are more likely to stay with them.
Pushing the Tests Underground
In the midst of such strong public support of these tests, criminalization has not noticeably reduced their use. Even with the passage of the Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act of 1988 in Maharastra, and similar acts in Haryana, Punjab and Gujarat, sex determination practices could not be stemmed.
Oddly, legal interference has had a negative affect on the situation, leading an otherwise lawful practice in hygienic clinics to slip underground. When determination techniques were banned, health care workers--who now could face prosecution--raised the price for these sex determination tests dramatically. Procedures are now offered without written evidence so as to escape legal action.
"It is very difficult because we are not dealing with some liquor bootlegger. These doctors are very clever and cautious," explains Dr. Patel. "Everything is by word of mouth. They don't keep documentary evidence. They have heightened charges ten times. Earlier those who were charging, say, RS700, now are charging RS7,000."
Shanti Conly, Director of Policy Research at Population Action International in Washington, D.C., agrees that sex selective abortions are on the rise. "It is still something that urban women practice more than rural women. The Indian entrepreneurial spirit is phenomenal. For years I've known people who have been making a lot of money by running trucks with generators out to villages with projectors and showing movies. Now they're putting ultrasound machines [easily obtained] on those trucks and offering prenatal testing."
This underground movement, coupled with the realities of the size and distribution of India's population, make it difficult to estimate just how many procedures are taking place. "It cannot be estimated because even in some of the villages and some of the states births and deaths are not being registered," notes Dr. Pagadala Rajaram, OB/GYN and Dean of the International Society for Medical Education, College for Medical Sciences in Nepal. "It is just not possible for anybody to access what is the number of abortions. Many of them go unrecorded."
Regardless of the actual numbers, one thing is clear. The practice of selective abortion is more widespread in India than female infanticide (which is committed mainly among the very poor), and it is on the rise.
Enforcement of the Ban
What will be the impact of the ban upon India? Some argue that bans in India are practically useless, especially when they are too idealistic, neglecting the reality faced by most of the population. Others are heartened, saying that the ban announces the Indian government's acknowledgment that sex-selective abortions are having a negative affect on the male/female ratio in the country.
To date, no one has been convicted under the current law [see sidebar, page 10], and Dr. Pagadala Rajaram feels that nothing will ever come of the ban unless legal action and enforcement follow. With such a large pro-selective abortion campaign in the country--consisting of women, health care workers, and government officials--effective legal action would seem difficult.
Although Dr. Vibhudi Patel concedes that the ten-year-old ban in Maharastra has been ineffective, she does see some positive affects in the new ban. "It has taken away respectability from the test," she notes. "Doctors used to think that they were godmen, and that they were doing society a favor by offering these tests. Now they have to portray themselves as criminals if they offer these tests. To that extent it is good."
Madhu Kishwar, founder and editor of India's distinguished women's magazine Manushi, told Hinduism Today that the ban will only drive selective abortion underground. "It has important social consequences, and one of them is a very imbalanced sex ratio. But you cannot impose a selective ban," she states. "The main issue is the public demand for something--people want abortion. Certain things cannot be decided by courts of law; this, I think, is one of them. Even if you could have the best of legal systems, if people are convinced that the law is not for their welfare, they are going to find ways of disobeying it."
Shanti Conly agrees. "It's very easy for governments to pass laws about this; it's important they do so. But to actually enforce these laws is very difficult. I think the key is changing attitudes and the value of women. It's not really a law and order problem where you can go around arresting women for murder. I think reporting and punishing selective abortions will just drive these practices underground."
The Tenacious Dowry Factor
Among the complex social and cultural reasons in India and other Asian nations for son preference, no doubt the most compelling is the economically crippling system of dowry. Dowry stems from the early concept of stri dana in which gifts --usually jewelry, including often a quarter pound of gold--was given to the bride by her family, in order to secure some personal wealth for her when she married. This jewelry remained her personal property throughout the marriage, providing some security in case of her husband's death or other calamity.
However, in approximately the 19th century, the loving practice of stri dana was joined by the very much different concept of dowry. Dowry became first an expected, then a demanded, offering given by the bride's family to the groom's family at the time of marriage.
Whereas stri dana is considered the property only of the woman, passed matrilineally, dowry is not. Notes Madhu Kishwar. "Dowry payments are, as currently made, rarely considered female-owned or inherited property. Instead, they take more and more the form of offerings over which the daughter retains uncertain rights," Kishwar describes the transformation. "They are made to the groom's family as a token of gratitude for accepting the girl into their family, and for allowing her natal family to get rid of her. There is usually the tacit understanding that a bride can retain some rights in disposition of some of the jewelry."
Even with the establishment of the Dowry Prohibition Act--which outlaws dowry payments and, in the case of a divorce, rewards dowries back to brides--the practice of dowry has not subsided.
"We find that most people still demand dowry," notes S. Mohan, Justice of the Supreme Court of India from 1991-94. "This is a most unfortunate thing in our country. It is prevalent both in the urban as well as in rural areas. Most of the dowry debt, according to statistics, is in Uttar Pradesh, the fourth state is Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu comes in at number nine."
Kiran Bedi, the first woman on the Indian Police Force, feels that the Dowry Prohibition Act never really was an advantage for women. "The bride would have to seek enforcement of her rights and not every woman is in a physical or mental frame to do so. Economically, she is absolutely weak and not in a strong position to seek enforcement of her rights."
Although the dowry system only serves to increase preference for men, Ms. Conly suggests that most families still appreciate the worth of daughters. "Most families do want a daughter, a daughter to help the mother with child care and other household chores. Also,women often want an emotional bond with their daughter. The families are willing to scramble and survive for one daughter," she describes. "But if you are talking about more than one daughter, then it becomes a huge problem. Poor families feel the crunch particularly, but dowry is relative to income. Even wealthy families can feel that a second daughter is going to bring financial ruin or, at a minimum, significant financial stress. So, I think both female infanticide and sex-selective abortion are driven to some extent by the dowry system."
"The decision that is facing the family is...if they have a daughter, they must marry her because not to marry a daughter is equivalent to death in traditional society," adds Conly. "But to have that daughter, you have to mobilize a certain level of wealth."
Having a daughter all comes down to one point: if one has a daughter, she must be married; to be married, a daughter must have a dowry; with each daughter and each dowry, the family wealth declines and family members live less well. Therefore, if a family is not wealthy, as is the case in most of India, it is more likely that parents would prefer to have sons who, even if they never marry, will not detract from the family wealth.
While a daughter might drain the family finances, a son could actually enhance it. And as time goes on, the dowry demands seem only to be increasing monetarily, making sons the smarter family investment. Dr. Patel explains that the rise in dowry price is a means of upward social mobility. "I think it is the way you keep up with consumerist culture," postulates Dr. Patel. "Daughter means a liability, and son means an asset. In my community sons are called 'blank checks.' This is the culture in which we live."
For families with sons, there is no way but to follow the practice of dowry. As Ms. Kishwar notes, even if families with sons demand minimum or no dowries at all, society does not reckon this as noble. Quite the opposite, society may feel that a low dowry reflects a family's judgment of their son's worthlessness.
Other Consequences
Women who undergo sex selective abortions may end up aborting fetus after fetus, continuing the cycle until they have a son. If they desire another son, the arduous routine may continue for years. These repetitive abortions on women can only damage their reproductive health, notes Dr. Manickavel. He is currently Professor in the Department of Microbiology at the International Society for Medical Education, College of Medical Sciences in Nepal and previously taught in Northern American Universities for over fifteen years. "Medically, it has been expressed by some physicians that it is dangerous to women's health. She becomes an habitual aborter, " he explains. "Even when she wants to have a baby after she has gone through some abortions as a means of selection, she cannot hold conception for a long time." Thus, the process of selective abortions may be self-defeating in the end. The very woman who strives to have a son may ultimately not be able to conceive at all.
Dr. Vibhudi Patel recounts a true story in which sex selective abortion had a horrific impact on the daughters of a family. "Two sisters in Punjab committed suicide. Before that, they left a note for their parents," she explains the story, one of many similar cases occurring in India. "It is a telling story of how these young girls feel. They were very bright; they were very creative. They used to participate in all extra-curricular activities. They used to write poetry. When their mother went for a sex determination test at the time of her third pregnancy, they suddenly felt unimportant and unwanted and killed themselves."
The "White Cradle Program"
With social education and support, state governments are able to institute and implement programs to improve the lives of unwanted baby girls and also to increase daughter preference. In Tamil Nadu, under the guidance of Chief Minister Jayalalita, several programs have been instituted to aid the lives of baby girls. Dr. Manickavel sees merit in one of those programs entitled the White Cradle Program, a government sponsored alternative to female infanticide. "This was a response to female infanticide reported in some places near Madurai as well as near Salem," he explains. "What Chief Minister Jayalalita did was to introduce a program where cradles were set up in public places like hospitals so parents and women can leave their babies anonymously, knowing the government will take care of them, try to find a home. When they give up the babies for adoption, the government sets up trust funds for the babies. Until they get to twenty-one years of age, the families who have adopted the baby girl will be given some money for their care." It's a working program that fits with India's cultural reality.
Outside India, It's Worse
Selective abortions occur in other Asian countries as well. Dr. Chai Bin Park, Professor of Public Health at the University of Hawaii, School of Public Health, points out that sex selective abortions are even more prevalent in China and Korea than in India.
In China, an already existing preference for sons at least as strong as that in India has been increased in recent years. Because of the loss of social pension benefits for the elderly following the breakdown of collective farms, the elderly must now turn to their sons for economic support. "In China, they are committing infanticide and hiding female births so we do not know exactly how much sex selective abortions are going on," notes Dr. Park.
Ms. Conly finds that the shortage of woman in China has both positive and negative affects. "They are finding in China, and particularly among the urban couples, that [they] are satisfied when they have a child if it is a girl," she stresses. "But there are also some very negative trends that have come out of the shortage of women, for example, the kidnaping of girls to be brides by rural farmers."
In Conclusion
Many experts feel that India's law against prenatal sex determination is no solution to the admitted predicament. In a society plagued by the materialistic system of dowry--a concept contrary to the precepts of Hinduism--and age-old prejudices against women, a ban so alien to the expectations of everyday life will never obtain the public's full support. Health care workers and the masses are effectively keeping the network of selective abortions thriving underground.
To make any substantial changes in parental attitudes towards daughters, it is necessary to change the social and economic roots of son preference. The key to such changes lies in improving the status of women. By improving the status of women, couples will not think of their daughters as burdens and consequently daughter preference will rise. And the only way to improve the status of women is to educate the nation.
Correspondent V.G. Julie Rajan is a freelance writer living in Pennsylvania. She hopes to improve the status of women and minorities through her work. Currently, she is writing a book on gender-based double standards in Indian society.
Shailaja Chandra, ”Female foeticide or genocide?” News Today, Bangladesh, 8 September 2005.
Census statistics show that millions of girls who should have been citizens of India today are missing, writes Shailaja Chandra
A spectre is haunting India - that of the vanishing girl child. Census statistics show that millions of girls who should have been citizens of India today are missing.
The child sex ratio, which was 945 girls in 1991, has fallen to 927 in 2001 and doubtless even further since then. Clearly, our efforts to maintain a balanced sex ratio have met with failure.
Neither the Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994, nor its reincarnation, the Preconception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of sex selection acts) Act, 2003, have had any impact.
The unabashed massacre of female foetuses in some of the wealthiest parts of the country is inexplicable. Factors like lack of education or the perceived economic advantage of boys over girls ought not to apply at least there.
Affluent States like Punjab, Haryana, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh and 23 cities led by Mumbai and Delhi have seen sex ratios plummeting to an all-time low. Districts like Gandhinagar, Ahemdabad, Mehasana and Rajkot, throbbing with prosperity for the most part, are the worst affected in Gujarat.
The belief that the educated South has no such problem is also dispelled with Tamil Nadu joining the States exhibiting a downward child sex ratio.
In Delhi's ultra well-to-do localities of South Delhi and West Delhi, the child sex ratio is a shocking 762 and 784 as reported by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi in 2004. Other zones of the Capital have a ratio no higher than 850.
The richest and the most educated families, exactly like their country cousins, are obsessed with producing sons.
A recent study released by the Christian Medical Association highlights how for first order births in Delhi hospitals, the sex ratio is a fairly respectable 959 which almost halves if the previous child was a girl.
It reduces to 894 if the older two children were boys, but plunges to 219 if the earlier two children were girls. This pattern may soon be reflected in a country-wide report under compilation by the Registrar General of India to be released shortly.
To what can we attribute this abysmal state of affairs? If there are laws, why have they remained only on paper? Is it incompetency, apathy, connivance or all three?
The guidelines for registration of ultrasound facilities, their duties and obligations prohibits anyone connected with genetic laboratories, ultrasound clinics or imaging centres to associate with or help in carrying out the detection or disclosure of sex of the foetus in any manner.
Every single detail concerning the pregnant woman has to be recorded, leaving no scope whatsoever for fudging or turning a Nelson's eye to the instructions. The punishments are draconian. Detailed documentation has to be (and is) despatched at specific intervals to the prescribed authorities.
The ground reality is that reams and reams of paper descend at the doors of the designated authorities and remain there. Excuses about shortage of manpower and lack of expertise are repeated ad nauseam.
The attitude to enforcement ranges from nonchalance to hysteria - the outcomes being equally dismal. Not a single case of sex determination has apparently been charged and punished, despite glaring circumstantial evidence that the law is being flouted with impunity.
Spurred on by such ambivalence to criminal sex determination, a group of non-governmental organisations, have begun to unravel the documentation and work backwards to pinpoint who did what, when, where and on whom (in Delhi).
If all is fine, they say, how come thousands and thousands of births which ought to have taken place nine months after the tests were conducted have simply vanished from the hospital records? Hopefully, even now some chickens may come home to roost.
Under law, the Chief Medical Officers are in charge of checking the clinics in every district. Ask them their story.
The first response will be that all records are being maintained meticulously and no lacunae can be found on any score. They reject the idea of sting operations - because everything is `managed' through an informal network - too complex for ordinary mortals to penetrate.
Meanwhile, all pregnant women (who can pay) are being routinely referred for ultrasounds in early pregnancy, to be on the safe side.
Whereas the conditions under which ultrasound is required to be done are aimed at identifying abnormalities, a few loose phrases like for evaluation of foetal well-being leave enough scope for ultrasounds to be undertaken mechanically. If it's a girl, its expulsion is obvious and the route is easy.
In the districts where there are no ultrasound facilities, the sex ratio is in fact comparatively higher. The outcome? More ultrasound machines percolate into the rest of the country where the facilities do not exist or are sparse. This is FMCG at its fastest.
Who cares what happens 15 years from now? Talk to any one who owns or runs an ultrasound facility. The responses are identical. First, that sex determination is a horrible business.
But mind you, it is not a medical problem. It is a social problem. None of us is indulging in this horrible practice - but yes, it is rampant in the next district or township.
The authorities out there are not supervising things properly. Also were always asked whether the colour is blue or pink, whether it is time for barfi or ladoo but our lips are sealed. Meanwhile, sex ratios continue to crashdive and hospital records show too few girls being born each month.
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