India Sex Ratio

Indias sex ratio is very low, next only to China. Girls are eliminated selectively at various levels.
The PNDT Act has failed to improve the sex ratio. What other legal approach can be taken? Ans. 1. Low sex ratio does not have its root cause in the ultrasound machine. It was low even before ultrasound became common. All that the ultrasound has done is to hasten a pre-existing trend. Banning ultrasound cannot banish the pre-existing trend. 2. Even without ultrasound, several techniques have been used in the society for centuries to eliminate the girl child. Some of these are as follows: a. Physically smothering the baby girl at birth; b. Letting her choke on milk/water poured in her mouth c. Burying her alive in the ground or throwing her in a pond etc. d. Chronic deprivation of the girl child from food, nutrition, medicines etc. 3. The root causes of female killing are: poverty; lack of security as regards crimes against women; a girl is seen as an economic burden, especially when viewed in the context of dowry. All these basically converge into a single attributeNonempowerment of women/low socioeconomic status of women. 4. If sex ratio has to be improved, the root causes need to be addressed, rather than focus all attention upon restricting the use of ultrasound. Measures to raise the social status and empowerment of women on a war footing can yield effective results within one generation. 5. Some of the legal and administrative measures that can be taken to improve sex ratio are as follows: a. The goal of 100% female literacy (defining literacy as education up to primary school) should be achieved at whatever cost by whatever means. It must be remembered that education is the best means of empowerment. If necessary, specific central or state laws should be made for this purpose. The performance of states and districts as regards achievement of this time bound goal should be strictly monitored and bottlenecks removed; incentives given; and, disincentives/punishment imposed. b. The PNDT Act should be scrapped or radically altered to provide for the following: i. It should be recognised that ultrasound is a very useful investigation for a large number of disease conditions and its
free use, including 3-D and 4-D ultrasound, should be encouraged rather than suppressed. ii. There should be no restriction on doing USG or buying an ultrasound machine. iii. There should be no restriction on doing USG in pregnancy. iv. The following specific measures should be adopted: ONE--Every person performing a USG on a pregnant woman and reporting the sex as female should be promised Rs. 2000/-, payable on delivery of the female child. TWO--Every woman carrying a female fetus should be promised the following: FIRSTLY--A reward of Rs. 5000/-, payable on delivery of the female child. SECONDLY--Immediate preferential Adhar/UID registration of the whole family (with consequential benefits) on USG diagnosis of the female sex of the child. THIRDLY--Immediate FREE one year special mediclaim policy for the mother which would provide complete health cover (including the pregnancy related cover), the insurance expenses being borne by the government. This one year policy should also cover the baby, in-utero as well as ex-utero, for a period of 365 days commencing from the date of the policy. FOURTHLY--A special FREE LIC policy for the girl child from birth till the age of 18 years. FIFTHLY--A monthly cash allowance of Rs. 1000/- for the female fetus/girl child till she attains the age of 18 years. SIXTHLY--FREE education for the girl up to whatever level she wants to study. c. The bill for one-third reservation of women in legislatures/Parliament should be passed without delay. This will be a step towards empowerment of women. d. The following recommendation of the Law Commission in its Report dated 2008 should be implemented by the Centre without delay:
(i) A Marriage and Divorce Registration Act [hereinafter referred to as the proposed law] should be enacted by Parliament, to be made applicable in the whole of India and to all citizens irrespective of their religion and personal law and without any exceptions or exemptions. Such an Act will go a long way in empowering women and reducing crimes against them. e. The compulsory registration of pregnancies, as conceptualised in Indias National Population Policy, 2000, should be implemented. This will ensure monitoring of pregnancies and will help in identifying and avoiding attempts at selective female foeticide. f. The income tax law should be amended to provide the following: i. Further increase substantially the relief in income tax in case of women; ii. A legal provision to recognise housekeeping as a legitimate activity for the purpose of income tax, providing thereby that one-fourth of the husbands income (with a certain maximum limit) would be deemed to have been paid to the wife towards the service of housekeeping. This amount paid should be treated as the wifes independent non-taxable income. (Suitable provisions would need to be included where the main earning spouse is the wife and house-keeping is done mainly by the husband). g. Investigation and trial related to crime against women should be fast paced in a time bound manner by taking necessary measures. 6. 100 worst districts as regards sex ratio should be identified and subjected to more intense funding, monitoring and evaluation etc. aimed at bringing them at par with the remaining districts within a specified period.

India Sex Ratio

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Indias sex ratio is very low, next only to China. Girls are eliminated selectively at various levels.

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