http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/world/asia/13iht-letter13.html?_r=1&ref=asia
The Female Factor A Campaign Against Girls in India By NILANJANA S. ROY Published: April 12, 2011 NEW DELHI - The figures tell an old and cruel story: the systematic elimination of girls in India. In the 2001 census, the sex ratio - the number of girls to every 1,000 boys - was 927 in the 0-6 age group. Preliminary data from the 2011 census show that the imbalance has worsened, to 914 girls for every 1,000 boys. Women's groups have been documenting this particular brand of gender violence for years. The demographer Ashish Bose and the economist Amartya Sen drew attention to India's missing women more than a decade ago. The abortion of female fetuses has increased as medical technology has made it easier to detect the sex of an unborn child. If it is a girl, families often pressure the pregnant woman to abort. Sex determination tests are illegal in India, but ultrasound and in vitro fertilization centers often bypass the law, and medical terminations of pregnancy are easily obtained. Some women, like 30-year-old Lakshmi Rani from Bhiwani district in Uttar Pradesh, have been pressured into multiple abortions. Ms. Rani's first three pregnancies were terminated. "My mother-in-law took me to the clinic herself," she said, her voice matter-of-fact but barely audible. "It wasn't my decision, but I didn't have a choice. They didn't want girls." Now her husband's family is pushing her to get pregnant again, and she is hoping for a boy. Despite government campaigns against aborting female fetuses, she does not believe she will be allowed a choice. Ms. Rani's story is echoed across Uttar Pradesh, a state that has among the most skewed sex ratios in India. Census figures show the female-male ratio in the 0-6 year group slipping from 916 in 2001 to 899 in 2011. In a 2007 Unicef report, Alka Gupta explained part of the problem: Discrimination against women, already entrenched in Indian society, has been bolstered by technological developments that now allow mobile sex selection clinics to drive into almost any village or neighborhood unchecked. The 1994 Preconception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques Act was amended in 2003 to deal with the medical profession - the "supply side" of the practice of sex selection. However, the act has been poorly enforced. The reasons behind the aborting of female fetuses are complex, according to the Center for Social Research, a research organization in New Delhi. Ranjana Kumari points out that the practice happens in some of India's most prosperous states - Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh - indicating that economic growth does not guarantee a shift in social attitudes. She pinpoints several factors that account for the preference for boys in many parts of India, especially the conservative north: sons are the source of the family income, daughters marry into another family and are not available to look after their parents, dowries make a daughter a liability and, in agricultural areas, there is the fear that any woman who inherits land might take that property to her husband's family. Another form of violence against women - dowry deaths - is equally well-documented, and just as ugly, though Indians are so used to these that they have become almost invisible. The names of Sunita Devi, Seetal Gupta, Shabreen Tajm and Salma Sadiq will not resonate strongly for most Indians, though they were all in the news last week for similar reasons. Sunita Devi was strangled in Gopiganj, Uttar Pradesh, the pregnant Seetal Gupta was found unconscious and died in a Delhi hospital, Shabreen Tajm was burned to death in Tarikere, Karnataka, and Salma Sadiq suffered a miscarriage after being beaten by her husband in Bangalore. Demands for larger dowries by the husband's family were behind all of these acts of violence, so commonplace that they receive no more than a brief mention in the newspapers. National Crime Bureau figures indicate that reported dowry deaths have risen, with 8,172 in 2008, up from an estimated 5,800 a decade earlier. Monobina Gupta, who has researched domestic violence for Jagori, a nongovernmental organization, draws a direct link between these killings and the abortion of female fetuses: "The dowry is part of the continuum of gender-based discrimination and violence, beginning with female feticide. Following the arrival of" economic "liberalization in 1992, the dowry list of demands has become longer. The opening up of the markets and expansion of the middle classes fueled consumerism and the demand for modern goods. For instance, studies show that color television sets or home video players have replaced black-and-white television sets, luxury cars the earlier Maruti 800, sophisticated gadgets basic food processors. "It is similar to what is happening with female feticide," she said. "As the middle class comes into more money, it is accessing more sophisticated medical technology either to ensure the birth of a boy or get rid of the unborn girl." What is the cost to the Indian family of having a girl, or to the boy's family of forgoing a dowry? The economist T.C.A. Srinivasaraghavan puts the average dowry around 10,000 rupees, or $225. That average figure masks the exorbitant dowry demands that are often made by the family of the groom. In response to the early findings from the 2011 census, the central government has set up an office to monitor the misuse of sex-selection techniques and the abortion of female fetuses. But real progress may come about only as social and cultural attitudes toward women change. In the meanwhile, women may have to seek their own solutions. In one of Delhi's upscale office areas, Kiran Verma, 28, surveyed her tiny shop, a photocopying center. Ms. Verma's father left the family years ago, and her mother, a domestic worker, worries about covering the cost of her daughter's wedding. But like many other urban women today, Ms. Verma has her own plans. "In another year I'll have earned my dowry," she said with confidence. "That way, I'll have some choice over the family I marry into." Young women earning their own dowries is not the radical solution - the total eradication of the dowry and discrimination against women - that a generation of feminists have dreamed about. But in their efforts to redefine themselves as generators of wealth, rather than as liabilities to their families, Ms. Verma and her generation of Indian women may be striking a few blows of their own against the prejudices that contribute to gender-based abortion. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Post message: [email protected] Subscribe : [email protected] Unsubscribe : [email protected] List owner : [email protected] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
