Approximately 5.7 lakh girls go missing annually because of prenatal sex selection – Anuja Gulati
Anuja Gulati
2014-03-11-March_11_to_17Good afternoon, fellow Rotarians, ladies and gentlemen. It is my pleasure to introduce Anuja Gulati. Anuja is the State Programme Officer of the United Nations Population Fund (UNPFA), Maharashtra. She has earned a postgraduate degree in Business Administration from the Birla Institute of Technology and has worked in the area of Population and Development for over two decades. As part of the work with UNPFA, she provides technical support to the government of Maharashtra for programmes on reproductive health and has supported the government for effective implementation of the law to curb sex selection. Anuja’s areas of focus include gender equality, gender-based sex selection and violence against women, which are burning issues in our country – even though we are almost fifteen years into the 21st century. Just ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8, Anuja will address us on “India’s missing daughters: A story of discrimination”. Please extend a warm welcome to Anuja Gulati.
— Rtn. Anar ShahThank you for the introduction. I would like to thank Rtn. Ramesh Narayan for inviting me. I am here to talk about the issue of skewed sex ratios. I am sure you will agree with me if I were to say that India is a country of paradoxes. On one hand, we are one of the fastest growing economies in the world. On the other, we continue to follow age-old practices that promote caste, class and gender discrimination.
Discrimination against the girl child in India has existed for centuries. Earlier it used to take the form of female infanticide and depriving the girl child of food, nutrition and educational opportunities.In recent years, technology has dramatically changed the way discrimination takes place. It has been misused to find out the sex of the unborn foetus and eliminate it, if it is a female. This has resulted in skewed sex ratios and a large number of girls have gone missing from our country’s population.
Data shows that the child sex ratio, meaning the number of girls in the 0-6 years age group per 1,000 boys, has declined. It was 976 in 1961 and had fallen to 919 according to the 2011 census. Punjab and Haryana have the lowest sex ratios. Even Maharashtra and Jammu and Kashmir have shown a decline. Other states such as Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and some of the north eastern states have shown an increase of just two to three points, which is statistically
not significant.
Contrary to the belief that sex selection is more pre-dominant in the rural areas, this phenomenon is more prevalent in the well-off, urban socio-economic classes. Urban areas have the worst child sex ratios when compared to the rural areas.
Child sex ratios are normal where women have an important and visible role in the economy. For example, in the southern states, the number of women working in paddy fields is higher than the number of women working in the fields of northern states, where wheat is grown. The sex ratios are better in the southern states.
Based on the sex ratios at birth i.e. the number of girls born per 1,000 boys (which was 906 in 2008), we calculated the number of missing girls and found that in our country approximately 5.7 lakh girls are eliminated annually because of the practice of sex selection. This is according to the data collected for the period 2001 to 2008 — we don’t have sex selection at birth data beyond that.
When I look at these figures I wonder what will happen to our future? The possibility of a girl having a sister or sisters is diminishing rapidly if we were to see this. Patriarchal mindsets prefer boys over girls because of reasons such as dowry, carrying forward the family name and the belief that boys will provide support in old age.
The Maharashtra Government enacted a Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques Regulation of Sex Selection Act in 1987. The government of India followed that Act and in 1994 the Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act was enacted. However, prenatal sex selection was not the only problem — IVF and infertility clinics were also being used to sex select before conception.
Thus, to keep pace with the emerging technology, the Act was amended in 2003 to include these techniques. It is important to note that the legislation regulates testing and does not prohibit it because testing through sonography is important to detect abnormalities in the unborn foetus. What it prohibits is disclosure of the sex of the foetus. It does not limit a woman’s access to abortion. It ensures that the right to safe and legal abortion under the four conditions mentioned under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act is retained.
While the government did its bit, civil society organisations also did their bit in terms of monitoring and inspection of ultrasonic clinics, conducting campaigns, undertaking advocacy and influencing implementation of the Act. The UN bodies have has also got together and the organisation I represent is a key UN agency to address the issue of sex selection. We mapped sex ratios across different states and highlighted the extent of the problem to demand immediate attention. We have worked extensively with doctors, communities, professionals, associations of doctors and have encouraged the media to practice gender sensitive journalism. The largest body of our work has been to support the government for implementation of Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act. It’s an interesting Act because it involves women and doctors. Every time we communicated on the issue of sex selection we promoted the instrumental value of women.
When so much has happened why is it that sex ratios continue to decline? It is because the government passed the Act and thought that would take care of everything. Implementation of the Act was never emphasised. If implementation was emphasised things could have been different.
I feel we need to address the change in mindset and ensure effective implementation of the law. We need to address patriarchy to tackle the root causes of discrimination. Ultimately, sex selection is just the symptom — we haven’t looked enough at the root causes. It’s about the unequal status of women. There can be no family, no community, no society and no nation without women. At the individual level, we should not commit, condone or remain silent about sex selection. India’s missing daughters is a critical issue that needs to be addressed.
Some excerpts from the Q&A session:
Q: Would educating the female child make a difference? Because it is ultimately a lady who carries the foetus in her womb.
Anuja: I agree with you about education but we need to understand that it would take centuries to educate every single child in our country.
After doing research, we realised that women who are educated also tend to sex select. Only those women who are self-empowered will stand up for their child’s rights.
In the short term we need to address this issue through various other means such
as effective implementation of the laws and
female employment.
Q: Which states don’t follow the ban on sex selection? Is there any country in the world where the ratio is the reverse? If yes, what have they done to achieve this?
Anuja: The Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques Act is applicable to the entire country. So all states have to follow it. But every time you tighten the noose on one state people move to neighbouring states. Belgaum and Surat are becoming the hubs of sex selection. Answering your second question, South Korea had extremely low sex ratios in the last decade. The reversal happened because of effective laws to curb the practice of sex selection as well as deregistration of a few doctors. Incidentally, Maharashtra in our country has taken the lead and about 50 doctors have been deregistered for practicing
sex selection.