EDITORIALS
sadhus, backed by the Bharatiya Janata Party which is waiting in
the wings to replace the UPA. Sadly however, the leader of the
other anti-corruption movement, Anna Hazare, by his intemperate
utterances and behaviour, has quite often betrayed a pro-Ramdev
bias, to the extent of observing a one-day fast in his support. One
expects sober and secular-minded members of his team to dissuade him from such aberrations, and instead make serious efforts to draft a Lokpal Bill.
Impassioned Slogans, Half-hearted Actions
What will it take to help save the girl child?
I
ndia’s child sex ratio (CSR) has been steadily declining for
decades and, according to the Census of 2011, has reached
914 girls for every 1,000 boys (0 to 6 years). The reasons for
the decline are all too familiar: the low status of women and “son
preference” leading to selective abortion of the female foetus.
From the mid-1980s onwards, women’s rights activists have been
fighting to prevent the misuse of ultrasound or sonography to
determine the sex of the foetus. Medical practitioners who use
technology for female foeticide have used every “innovative”
trick in the book to remain ahead of the legal restrictions. From
devising sign language to overcome the prohibition of indicating
the sex of the foetus to using mobile clinics (vehicles) fitted with
portable imaging machines, these strategies have ensured that
the number of India’s missing girls has multiplied. The government’s measures to halt the fall in the CSR have come up against
the usual roadblock of faint-hearted implementation.
If any further evidence of the phenomenon of a falling sex ratio
is needed, the result of a new study provides unambiguous
information (“Trends in Selective Abortions of Girls in India:
Analysis of Nationally Representative Birth Histories from 1990
to 2005 and Census Data from 1991 to 2011”, The Lancet, 4 June).
The study which analysed population census data and tracked
the birth history of about 2,50,000 children born between 1990
and 2005 found that when the first child was a male, there was
no fall in the sex ratio of the second child. But when the first
born was a female, the sex ratio of the second births declined.
The study confirms yet another familiar and disturbing trend:
selective abortion of the female foetus is the highest in the most
educated and in the richest 20% of the households. Despite the
sociological fallout of the declining sex ratio such as the nonavailability of brides for young men in many of the worst-affected
districts of northern and western India, medical technology
continues to be used to target the female foetus. Anyone with just
six months training or one year’s experience in image scanning
can use the ultrasound machines, thus making sex determination easily accessible.
The government’s half-hearted actions give the lie to its impassioned slogans and announcements on saving the girl child. For
example, the Central Supervisory Board was supposed to meet
every six months to monitor the implementation of the PreConception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act,
1994. The board last met in December 2007. Incidentally, until
now only around 6% of cases filed against doctors involved in
sex-selection practices have resulted in convictions. This means
that of the 805 cases filed since the Act came into effect, only 55
8
have reached a legal conclusion. Now the union health ministry
has reconstituted the board and will place further amendments
to the PCPNDT Act before it. Mobile genetic clinics where prenatal
diagnostic tests are done will have to be registered, including
vehicles carrying portable ultrasound machines. There is also a
proposal to ensure that only gynaecologists and obstetricians and
practitioners who have Diplomates of the National Board (DNB)
will be allowed to use ultrasound machines. The Bombay High
Court recently ruled that ultrasound machines being illegally
used for sex determination can be seized by the government.
Yet, the government’s attention lies elsewhere. A new proposal
that has been reported to be on the table is to make abortion
rules stricter. This has given rise to apprehensions that it will
make life difficult for women who seek abortion for reasons
other than female foeticide. In Maharashtra, women’s organisations are protesting that the state supervisory board on the
PCPNDT Act has been more interested in making statements
about regulating the sale of the “morning after” pill than in targeting the problem of sex determination. Any move to make
abortion rules more stringent will only affect poor women and
the unmarried who will thus be pushed to risk the services of
quacks and illegal clinics.
In the battle to save the girl child, one of the strategies that has
shown positive results has been the involvement of community
leaders in changing the attitudes of parents. For example, one of
the worst-affected districts, Fatehgarh Sahib in Punjab, has shown
a turnaround due to the involvement of Sikh religious and community leaders in the campaign against sex determination tests.
For years now women’s rights activists have been demanding
that the unholy alliance between local medical and paramedical
practitioners on the one hand and government health officials
and sonography clinics on the other must be destroyed, public
health programmes must be delinked from family planning ones,
the value of women’s work must be recognised and women’s right
to inheritance and property must be ensured. Some of these are
long-term goals which obviously require sustained and committed
action, but work on short-term goals like stringent implementation of the PCPNDT Act must start immediately.
Punishing the illegal use of ultrasound machines for sex determination may have some effect but deep-rooted prejudices against
the girl child calls for different measures. Strict enforcement of the
Hindu Succession Act of 2005 (which allows daughters to inherit
ancestral or joint family property), the anti-dowry law and implementation of measures that enforce gender justice and care for
senior citizens will go a long way in weakening “son preference”.
june 11, 2011 vol xlvI no 24 EPW Economic & Political Weekly