Female foeticide: In modern India

By

CHARANPREET KAUR

Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques includes

Ultra- sonographyAmniocentesis

.

Female Foeticide is Aborting a female fetus after sex determination test.

FACTORS that FAVOUR…..

Evil of Dowry

Social SecurityReligion

Small Family Norm

Urban Living

Society

Evil of Dowry……..

• In marriage the groom demands that the bride’s father provide for his daughter’s maintenance, since she is now a financial ‘burden’ on him. Thereon the system of dowry started. So, a girl becomes a potential financial drain for man.

• As a matter of prestige too, more money and material goods is demanded in dowry.

• The girl was thus no longer desired.

In order to continue possessing ones property, even after death, the need of an heir, a son, became necessary .

The birth of a son is regarded essential in Hinduism and many prayers and lavish offerings are made in temples in hope of having a male child.

Social Security:

Son as Social Security for

old age

Religion helps ?…….

• The Ramayana represent the ideal woman as obedient and submissive, and advocates care of a male: first father, then husband, then son.

• Islam permits polygamy and gives women fewer rights than men.

Shame

Small Family Norm• Faced with social burdens rarely any one prefers to

have more children.• One or two is the norm of the day .• For continuance of ones property, and gene, the

need of an heir, a son, becomes necessary.• Termination of pregnancy is simple and accessible.• Female foeticide has become quite easy.• Couple adopts the saying that ‘It is better to spend

Rs500 now than Rs50,0000 (in dowry) later’

Society today……..

It speaks of a whole Society that has gone corrupt, desiring destruction of half its population, Are we secular, social, and human?.In Modern India a woman is regarded as a commodity and marriage has become more of a business alliance than a sacred bond between two souls.

The world population has a sex ratio of 990 females per 1000 males

Sex ratio:

Japan 1041

USA 1029

Indonesia 1004

Bangladesh 953

China 944

India 933

India has one of the lowest sex ratios in the world

WikiProject India Maps

Source: Census of India, 2001.

FEMALE FOETICIDE & INDIANS LIVING ABROAD:• Indians in other countries are going for sex selective abortions

is evident by the fact that sex ratio at birth among the Indian community in New Jersey is as bad as in Punjab and Haryana.

• A report in the British Newspaper, 'observer', had come up with evidence that British Asian women go to India to abort their baby girls. The British Law does not allow parents to choose sex of their babies except to avoid certain gender linked diseases. This forces many to go abroad. Abortion on the ground of sex is not allowed under the Abortion Act of 1967 in the UK. But sex can be disclosed by patients if they ask during ultrasound.

Preventive Steps

1. Ensuring strict implementation of existing legislation.

2. The advocacy of a scientific, rational, and humanist approach.

3. The empowerment of women and strengthening of women’s rights through campaigning against practices

such as dowry. 4. Inculcating a strong ethical code of conduct among medical professionals, beginning with their training as

undergraduates. 5.Simple methods of complaint registration, accessible

to the poorest and most vulnerable women. 6.Wide publication in the media on the scale and

seriousness of the practice.

AT THE END