ARSHAD SHEIKH presents tell-tale pictures of female foeticide, suggests ways and means to create awareness about this burning issue, and calls on social organisations and NGOs to build pressure on the government and political parties to effectively implement the existing laws that ban female foeticide and make it a punishable offence.
1)
Watery cushion cuddling her, she thrives
Her limbs grow at a silent natural pace
Closed are her eyes and tiny her ears
Yet fully aware of life and its vibrations
She doesn’t know the pangs of hunger,
Her tiny pouch is filled without asking for
She kicks gently and coos silently
She is tenderly moulded, perfectly modelled
Wet and glistening like a pearl in an oyster,
She is a magic of the Creator
Created within a mother’s womb
(We pray she then enters)
Into a safe and halcyon world
Where girls of any colour and race are received with
Joy, triumph and grace!
Hail and happiness to thee oh girl child
Welcome, welcome and welcome again!
(A poem by Ambika Ananth)
2)
According to a recent report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) up to 50 million girls and women are missing from India’s population. In most countries in the world, there are approximately 105 female births for every 100 males. In India, there are less than 93 women for every 100 men in the population. The steady decline in the National Sex Ratio in India for the age group of 0-6 years is quite disturbing and reveals a sharp increase of female foeticide in India over the last five decades.
3)
The fight against female foeticide is global and India is not behind in staging protests to create awareness about the issue.
4)
Under Indian laws, ultrasound tests on a pregnant woman to determine the gender of the foetus are illegal. However many private clinics continue to flout the law. By offering prenatal sex determination and abortions, they become one of the main culprits in this reprehensible practice. Some even shamelessly advertise with catch-lines such as spend 600 rupees now and save 50,000 rupees later (‘spend’ means their scanning charges and save implying the money that might be required for the girl’s dowry).
5)
Sometimes governmental policies have also increased female infanticide as an unpredicted side-effect. For example, when the Chinese Government introduced a One Child per Family Policy there was a surge in female infanticide. Families needed to have a son because of their higher earning potential, so a girl baby was an economic disaster for them, and there was a strong motive to ensure that girl babies did not survive.
6)
One of the reasons for female foeticide is that the family may have to produce a dowry when a girl child marries. Boys bring in a dowry when they marry, adding to the family wealth. A wife’s (and thus her economic security) is not consolidated until she produces a son. The trend to small families means that parents don’t want to have several girl children before having a son. One letter writer to the Indian press summed the situation up like this: The day grooms become available without a hefty price tag attached to them, female foeticide will end.
7)
The above ad says, “Thousands get away with pre-meditated murders every day. STOP FEMALE INFANTICIDE”. Special issues in magazines such as the current one, advertisement campaigns and protest rallies, seminars and symposiums are the ways and means to create awareness about this burning issue. Social organisations and NGOs must build pressure on the government and political parties to effectively implement the existing laws that ban female foeticide and make it a punishable offence. Let us all join hands to wipe this menace off the face of this earth.