While northeast states such as Manipur and Nagaland have shown a sharp deterioration in child sex ratio, the skewed ratio has improved marginally in Punjab and Haryana
The steadily declining child sex ratio in India has reached emergency proportions and urgent action must be taken to alleviate this crisis, warned a latest United Nations (UN) study. The report, released on Tuesday, has attributed much of the declining numbers to illegal abortions across the country.
The study titled ‘Sex Ratios and Gender Biased Sex Selection: History, Debates and Future directions’ by Mary John, senior fellow at the UN, looked at the population trend and research done on sex ratios since 1901.
According to India’s 2011 Census, while the overall female-to-male ratio has improved marginally as compared to the last Census, fewer girls were born than boys.
“It is tragically ironic that the one who creates life is herself denied the right to be born,” said Lakshmi Puri, deputy executive director of UN Women, at the launch of the study.
Advocating the benefits of government schemes like “Beti Bachaao”, the official said there was a critical need to deconstruct the entire structure of patriarchy because gender-based sex selection was linked to a larger system of inequality and imbalance of power in the country.
According to the study, northeast states such as Manipur and Nagaland have shown a sharp decline in the child sex ratio between 2001 and 2011. In contrast, the ratio in Punjab improved from 798 to 846 and in Haryana from 819 to 834 in the same period. The report has also mentioned that the dwindling number of girls is fuelling increase in crimes such as kidnapping and trafficking.
“The deteriorating ratio from 976 girls to 1,000 boys in 1961 to 927 girls in 2001 and to 918 girls in 2011 demonstrates that the economic and social progress in the country has had minimum bearing on the status of women and daughters,” added Puri.
Discussing her study, Mary John said the changing political and economic situation was an important factor that had to be taken into account to develop the policies and norms to tackle the situation. “The life chances of women are decreasing even with the onset of development.”
No check on female foeticide
While the child sex ratio in the country is dipping, not much seems to have been done to check sex determination tests and selective abortions. Data for the whole country shows only 143 people have been punished for conducting sex determination tests since the enactment of the Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (PC&PNDT) Act in 1996. This number was disclosed by the then Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad in a written reply submitted to Rajya Sabha in December 2013.
Education could be the key
The report has mentioned that India is witnessing an unprecedented shift in son preference—more than one sons are no longer wanted. This, though, cannot be mechanically read as reduced son preference.
It has also mentioned that both schooling and higher education are important factors that need to be further studied in influencing sex ratios. “The sphere of education has suffered deeply from lack of attention, whether from scholars or from activists, which is coming home to roost today. It is probably the only indicator of steady progress in a country characterised by some of the lowest literacy rates in the world. It was only in 2010 that India was able to make elementary schooling a fundamental right for all”, the study has added.
“The government and the civil society must go beyond policy-making and must quickly identify specific behaviours, cultural attributes, practices, media representations, mindsets and notions that propagate discrimination against daughters and consequently help sex-determination testing flourish despite its illegality,” said Puri.
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