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    Female Foeticide: Magnitude of Problem

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    Riya Singh
    Female foeticide has led to over 10 million abortions of female fetuses in India. The practice stems from a cultural preference for sons over daughters and the dowry system. It is most prominent in northern states and certain castes, where census data shows alarmingly low female to male child ratios. While prenatal sex determination and selective abortion were banned in 1994, enforcement has been poor and the social effects of the gender imbalance include increased human trafficking of women.

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    Female Foeticide: Magnitude of Problem

    Uploaded by

    Riya Singh
    89 views4 pages
    Female foeticide has led to over 10 million abortions of female fetuses in India. The practice stems from a cultural preference for sons over daughters and the dowry system. It is most prominent in northern states and certain castes, where census data shows alarmingly low female to male child ratios. While prenatal sex determination and selective abortion were banned in 1994, enforcement has been poor and the social effects of the gender imbalance include increased human trafficking of women.

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    Introduction

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    Female foeticide has led to over 10 million abortions of female fetuses in India. The practice stems from a cultural preference for sons over daughters and the dowry system. It is most prominent in northern states and certain castes, where census data shows alarmingly low female to male child ratios. While prenatal sex determination and selective abortion were banned in 1994, enforcement has been poor and the social effects of the gender imbalance include increased human trafficking of women.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    89 views4 pages

    Female Foeticide: Magnitude of Problem

    Uploaded by

    Riya Singh
    Female foeticide has led to over 10 million abortions of female fetuses in India. The practice stems from a cultural preference for sons over daughters and the dowry system. It is most prominent in northern states and certain castes, where census data shows alarmingly low female to male child ratios. While prenatal sex determination and selective abortion were banned in 1994, enforcement has been poor and the social effects of the gender imbalance include increased human trafficking of women.

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    [

    INTRODUCTION
    Female foeticide is the act of aborting a foetus because it is female. This is
    a major social problem in India and has cultural connections with the dowry
    system that is ingrained in Indian culture, despite the fact that it has been
    prohibited by law since 1961. In India a strong preference for sons over
    daughters exists, unlike in Western cultures. People realize smaller family
    sizes with relatively greater number of sons through the use of medical
    technologies. 

    FEMALE FOETICIDE
    MAGNITUDE OF PROBLEM
    It is estimated that more than 10 million female foetuses have been
    illegally aborted in India. Researchers for the Lancet journal based in
    Canada and India stated that 500,000 girls were being lost annually
    through sex-selective abortions.
    Pre-natal sex-determination was
    banned in India in 1994, under
    the Pre- and Prenatal Diagnostic
    Techniques (Prohibition of
    conception Sex Selection) Act. The Date
    act aims to prevent sex-selective
    abortion, which, according to the
    Indian Ministry of Health and
    Family Welfare, "has its roots in
    India’s long history of strong
    patriarchal influence in all spheres
    of life.
    It is most prominent in Gujarat and
    the North Indian states, which
    according to census data have an alarmingly low ratio of female children.
    Certain castes regularly practiced female infanticide and later female
    foeticide. The castes with a much lower proportion of female children to
    male children included lewa patidars and the rajputs in Gujarat; jats,
    rajputs, khutris and royal brahmins in undivided Punjab, rajputs and gujars
    in the Uttar Pradesh.

    ORIGIN
    Title
    Female Foeticide
    This process began in the early 1990s when ultrasound techniques gained
    widespread use in India. There was a tendency for families to continuously
    produce children until a male child was born. This was primarily due to the
    large sexist culture that exists in India against women. This is reflected by
    literacy rates among women as well as economic participation, which are
    both particularly low in states where female foeticide is prominent and an
    unequal population ratio exists alongside. The government initially
    supported the practice to control population growth. The Preconception
    and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act was passed in 1994,
    making sex-selective abortion illegal. It was then modified in 2003 holding
    medical professionals legally responsible. However, the PCPNDT Act has
    been poorly enforced by authorities

    SOCIAL EFFECTS
    Female foeticide has led to an increase in human trafficking. In 2011,
    15,000 Indian women were bought and sold as brides in areas where
    foeticide has led to a lack of women.
    WHAT IS FEMALE FOETICIDE?

    Female foeticide is the selective abortion/elimination of the girl child in the


    womb itself, done deliberately by the mother, after the detection ofDate the
    child’s gender through medical means. This is usually done under familial
    pressure from the husband or the in-laws or even the woman’s parents.
    Unplanned pregnancy is generally the reason behind abortion. However,
    female foeticide is a far more heinous sin than the age old practice of
    killing an unwanted child, even before it’s born.
    Like many societies around the world, India too is patriarchal in nature. A
    set hierarchical system prevails in all tiers of the social order. The fanatic
    obsession with the male sex, though, is one of a kind. Right from the
    ancient scriptures, one finds instances where men are glowingly praised as
    the key to continue the family lineage. A girl is forced to undergo multiple
    pregnancies and (or) abortions, until she fulfills her lifelong goal of being a
    breeding machine that produces male offspring as per the needs of the
    family.
    Sadly, a majority of female feticide cases involve an enthusiastic
    participation of women, both old and young.

    WHY FEMALE FOETICIDE?


    Title
    Female Foeticide
    Every unethical act, like this one, has some age-old lame reasoning behind
    it, which is used as genuine justification by its staunch supporters. The root
    cause for female feticide lies within the cultural norms as well as the socio-
    economic policies of the country where this practice prevails. The most
    infected (I use the verb, for it precisely depicts the malady that has affected
    our world) are the South Asian countries like
    China, India, Vietnam, Korea etc. from where
    this social evil has mushroomed today to the
    western nations like the USA and Canada.
    This is the end result of immigration that has
    brought along female feticide across the
    pond. What is the rationale, one may
    wonder. Surprisingly, the reasons aren’t
    quite as diverse for these nations as one
    may perceive.

    PREVENTION AND CURE


    Do the facts enlisted above truly spell disaster
    for the future of women? Not really. The
    issues of female infanticide, female feticide and
    selective abortion have gained global
    attention. Many international termination
    of the doctor’s
    Date
    license who partakes in fulfilling a
    client’s demand to do away with her
    girl child.
             Heavy
    penalty imposed on
    companies and national law making
    bodies have come forward to stop this
    cruel practice. Of the numerous steps
    taken to curb the matter, the prominent
    ones are:

            Cancellation/permanent
    like GE, which specialize in marketing medical
    equipments used for illegal sex determination and abortion in unlicensed
    clinics and hospitals.
             High
    fines and judicial action against ‘parents’ who knowingly try to kill
    their unborn baby.
             Widespread
    campaigns and seminars for young adults and potential
    parents to enlighten them about the ill effects of female feticide. Ignorance
    is one of the major causes for the increase in the selective sex abortionTitle
    Female Foeticide
    cases. Spreading awareness can go a long way in saving our future
    sisters, mothers, girlfriends and wives.
    A cohesive and concerted effort by everyone can prove to be the requisite
    baby step in the right direction. We may not support the notion of women
    rising above men, or them becoming the dominant sex, or conquering the
    world. However, the basic humane consideration to let an innocent child
    live and see the world she was conceived to grow in is not too much to
    ask. Let’s not be murderers of our own flesh and blood.

    END OF THE REPORT.

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