Introduction

“Murder” sounds relatively pale and less gruesome in comparison with inhumane practice called Female feticide (and infanticide), which tends to be rather ubiquitous and customary across several nations on this planet. Call it apathy, call it attempted murder. This article strives to generate awareness by bringing to light such scathingly truculent practices, (which, surprisingly are quite common) with a focus on India.

What is Female feticide? Female feticide is a diabolical act of discriminatory elimination of a girl child by selective abortion in her mother’s womb. I personally believe feticide to be tantamount to murder. This custom originates from transcendental patriarchal nature of society, inherent in both autochthonous and urbane cultures around the globe. The fanatic obsession for a male child is driven by several factors, ranging from carrying forward the legacy of family name, performing religious funeral traditions to being meal earner of the family or familial inability to get their daughters married. There were cases where pregnant women, upon finding sex of baby to be a girl, were kicked, punched and ‘stomped on’ belly, by their mother-in-laws. Practices like these are sure to ignite sparks of misanthropy. Sadly, in traditions like these, people find a girl child to be a burden.

According to ‘Annual Report on Vital Statistics of India based on Civil Registration System-2013’, the sex ratio at birth based on registered events was 898 in 2013, which is a drop from 908 in 2012 and 909 in 2011. Expected natural sex ratio is 943 females for every 1000 males. Cases like above, are emblematic of “Death before birth”. These whopping skewed sex ratios are indicative of plummeting human values. Per the report, the highest birth sex ratio has been reported from state of Tripura (1,055) followed by Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh (978), Daman and Diu (961) and Sikkim (956). The lowest sex ratio has been reported by Manipur (700) followed by Haryana (840). United Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Sikkim have the distinction of being the only major states reporting favorable sex ratio at birth in last so many years,” the report said. These numbers are indeed a giant leap into evolutionary darkness.

A slightly different mode of practice is “Female infanticide”, which happens to be a distant cousin of “Female feticide”, both practices genetically related in terms of barbarity. While feticide involves killing fetus, infanticide involves killing a live child. Depending on the rusticity of the area, the infanticide techniques involve feeding dry rice hull to puncture windpipes, feeding poisonous fertilizers, strangling with towels to starving to death. Gender discrimination, in general, also happens to be a reason. Research indicates a definite bias in feeding boys milk and milk products and eggs. In the states of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, it is usual for girls and women to eat less than men and boys and to have their meal after the men and boys had finished eating. In case of illness, it is usually boys who have preference in health care.

So, how is this done? Ancient techniques include prenatal sex discernment, surgical abortion, injection and/or over-the-counter medication. With the advent of new technology, came the ultrasound scan. Per Times of India report in November 2013, a new non-invasive test, till now used in the western countries to find out any abnormality in a fetus, has made its entry into India and is causing some apprehensions among doctors as it can be misused for determining the sex of fetus. Per Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act introduced in 1994 (and later amended in 2002), the government of India enacted to stop female feticides.  However, this had little effect on people and their thinking.

Reasons

Let’s delve a little deeper into the various reasons behind such barbarous lore. It turns out this practice has been existing from the days of yore. United Nations Population Fund and several other NGOs have also researched the reasons behind these practices. Family economics is a key element. Traditionally, the major causes of discrimination against a girl child have been the son preference deeply rooted in the patriarchal Indian society. Low literacy rate and low familial earnings rattle the cage even further. Also, in many societies, parents depend on their children to look after them in their senectitude. The fact that a girl leaves her parental family and joins her husband's family when she marries, gives parents a strong reason to treat girls as a drain on family resources during their childhood without bringing economic benefits later on.

Sad existence of ‘Dowry’ is one of the major reasons why a female child is often deemed unwanted. In Indian society, it has been a tradition for the parents of the bride to pour in huge amounts of money and valuable goods to the groom and his family. For families with several daughters, this can be a serious financial burden. Status of women, among others, is a concern. Some women resort to Female Infanticide and feticide in order to protect their daughters from a flippant societal clutches of objectification and helotry in societies dominated by men.

Improvement in literacy rates could change the skewed sex ratios.  Prevalence of prenatal sex determination is another contributing factor. This is more widespread among the economically well-off because availing of such services is determined by one's ability to pay. Thus, the rich agriculturalists living in the rural areas of the states of Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat and the urban elite living in the metropolis of Delhi tend to avail of sex-selective abortion. On the other hand, in matriarchal societies in the northeastern states of India, women control land holding and have a better say in matters related to family, economy and society. This has resulted in a slight preference for daughters in states like Meghalaya.

Gender discrimination, is by far, the biggest factor. Communities that encourage female feticide always show many other signs of prejudice against females. It’s a deeply regrettable fact that women are perceived as subservient because of their role as traditional homemakers, whilst men predominantly ensure the family's social and economic stability. Men are usually the bread earners, either because they have higher chances of employment or because of their physical wherewithal to perform agricultural work, which gives rise to a preference for male babies. As herculean as it might sound, it’s time women and men voice their support for women, to end gender discrimination, which affects our society in more ways than one, to create what seems to be an Utopian scenario of a “gender equal” society.

Consequences

Infanticide comes with many perilous consequences. Gender-based violence, skewed sex ratios, illegal trafficking of women due to steep decline in number of girls, increase in rape and assault, population decline are some long term implications of female feticide and/or infanticides. Per 2013 National Crime Records Bureau report, there were around 23,640 reported cases related to human trafficking. Many states started adopting anti-trafficking policies. With no mothers or wombs to bear any child (male or female), there would be fewer births, leading to a decline in the country’s population. Although the Government of India passed the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act in 1994 to bring an end to feticide, there is growing concern about its effectiveness. There are numerous reasons why it still goes unchecked: sometimes district health officers are unaware of the provisions of the act; sometimes families and doctors collude in the practice, and records from ultrasound clinics are rarely scrutinized by health officials.

Steps Taken

Numerous steps have been taken by Government of India in tackling these issues. Some of them included  cancellation/permanent termination of the doctor’s license involved in fulfilling a client’s demand to do away with her girl child, heavy penalty imposed on companies that specialize in marketing medical equipment used for illegal sex determination and abortion in unlicensed clinics and hospitals, high fines and judicial action against ‘parents’ who knowingly try to kill their unborn baby, widespread campaigns and seminars for young adults and potential parents to enlighten them about the ill effects of female feticide.

The state of Maharashtra was the first state to pass legislation to regulate sex-determination tests in 1988. The bill in effect limits the use of sex-determination tests to the detection of "chromosomal abnormalities, genetic metabolic diseases, sex-linked genetic diseases and congenital anomalies”. In the state of Rajasthan, a woman giving birth to a girl child in a rural area given monetary reward from the state government under ‘Sumangala Yojna’ scheme . The state of Haryana decided to issue electronic cards with unique ID numbers to all pregnant women undergoing ultrasound tests in the district. State of West Bengal has a system for enabling money transfers at periodic intervals for the child’s education. In Punjab, pregnant women are registered in their first trimester in order that the authorities may follow up and monitor cases of feticide. Another example is Tamil Nadu’s Amma Baby Care Kit.  In January 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched twin programs “Beti Bacho, Beti Padho” - the "Save daughters, educate daughters" and “Sukanya Samriddhi” account. An initial corpus of $16 million has been allocated to the scheme and a reward of $166,000 has been announced to ‘innovative’ village which attains a balanced sex ratio. Any savings account opened in the name of girl child, would attract an interest rate of 9.1% provided by Government of India, with no income tax charged.

Prevention/ Solutions

Following steps could be taken to prevent the malady of ‘female feticide’ from spreading. In my personal research over the past several years with a number of community-based organizations, I found promoting gender equality to be an extremely effective way to combat female feticide. I set up mini training camps to bring to light the impact of skewed sex ratio in altering the healthy biological balance.

States should devise programs and strategies to improve gender equality and empower women following the adoption of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Program of Action and the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Legal measures, including legal bans on sex-selective abortions, sex determination and its advertisement are obvious policy options for targeting prenatal discriminatory behavior. Trends in sex selection should be monitored, most notably with support from statistical bureaus, professional associations, Non-Governmental Organizations and civil society organizations. Advocacy actions including awareness-raising campaigns and communication aimed at behavioral changes are crucial instruments. Welfare programs and Policy recommendations involving further research, trend analysis in all states through national statistical offices, developing new guidelines on the ethical use of relevant technologies to suppress deliberate gender discrimination should be at the core. Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) should be out rightly banned. Advancing girls' rights is also key to eliminating prenatal sex selection.

Results

Of late, the society started witnessing occasional marginal change in violence against women, skewed sex ratios and gender bias. However, change is far from utopian realty. It is the minds of the people and their thought process, more than governmental policies, which need to be a subject to paradigm shift. Respect towards women and gender equality needs to be perennially imbibed into the societal strata of patricians and plebeians, alike, to witness a discernible change in society. It’s only then, can we dare dream of a society to be “gender neutral”, a phrase which would be a misnomer no more, and whose words can be mentioned in the same breath.

...Arun