ULTRASOUND AND LOW NUMBER OF GIRLS IN INDIA

LOW NUMBER OF GIRLS IN INDIA

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Sex ratio in India : at birth: 1.12 male(s)/female; 0-14 years: 1.13 male(s)/female; 15-24 years: 1.13 male(s)/female; 25-54 years: 1.06 male(s)/female; 55-64 years: 1.08 male(s)/female 65 years and over: 0.91 male(s)/female; total population: 1.08 male(s)/female (2014 est.) [Source: CIA World Factbook]

Based on census figures, a 2000 Report on Human Development in South Asia study estimated there were 25 million to 50 million missing females in India, with as many as 80 million in South Asia. The low number of women is a result of female infanticide, abortion of female fetuses and the fact that young girls are fed less than boys. The number of girls has been decreasing. According to the 2001 census, there were 927 girls for every 1,000 boys below the age of six, compared to 945 in 1991 and 962 in 1981 and 972 in 2001. Normally there are 960 girls are born for every 1,000 boys.

The sex ratio is particularly unfavorable to females in the central northern section of the country. For example, in Uttar Pradesh there are only eighty-eight females per 100 males; in Haryana, eighty-seven per 100; and in Rajasthan ninety-one per 100. By contrast, in Kerala, on the southwest coast, a region traditionally noted for matriliny, the sex ratio is reversed, with females outnumbering males 104 to 100. In Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, two large southern states, there are ninety-seven females per 100 males. [Source: Library of Congress]

The number of girl is less in the richer states in the north and west where people can afford ultrasound tests and abortion. In Punjab there were 793 girls born per 1,000 boys in 2001, down from 875 in 1991. In Gujarat there were 878 girls per 1,000 boys in 2001, down from 928 in 1991. In Rajasthan the number of girls dropped to 865 in 2001 from 915 in 1991. In Maharashtra the number of girls dropped to 917 from 946 in the same period.

In some places in northern state of Haryana there are 600 females for every 1000 males. In Delhi there are 865 girls for every 1,000 boys. In Fatehgarth Sahib, a prosperous agricultural district in the Punjab, there are 754 girls for every 1,000 boys. In one school there, there were 473 boys and 292 girls.

Slightly higher female infant mortality rates (seventy-nine per 1,000 versus seventy-eight per 1,000 for males) can be attributed to poor health care, abortions of female fetuses, and female infanticide. Human rights activists have estimated that there are at least 10,000 cases of female infanticide annually throughout India. The cost of theoretically illegal dowries and the loss of daughters to their in-laws' families are further disincentives for some parents to have daughters. Sons, of course continue to carry on the family line. The 1991 census revealed that the national sex ratio had declined from 934 females to 1,000 males in 1981 to 927 to 1,000 in 1991. In only one state — Kerala, a state with low fertility and mortality rates and the nation's highest literacy — did females exceed males. The census found, however, that female life expectancy at birth had for the first time exceeded that for males. [Source: Library of Congress, 1995]

Bride Shortages in India

In some states there are so few girls and women that men are having a hard time finding brides. The families of some young men sometimes spend years searching for a bride and when they find one the girl turn the man down because she feels she can do better. In some cases families have dropped their demand for a dowry and even offered the bride’s family money. In other cases men have married brides belonging to lower castes—something unheard of in the past— and their families have conducted searches for brides in villages hundreds of kilometers away from their own,

In Bihar there have been reports of brothers sharing a wife. A member of a woman’s group told The Times. “The young woman is formally married to only one brother. Neither she nor her parents have any idea or their real intentions.” In some cases the girls are all but kidnapped. There are worries that in the future as the bride shortages gets even worse and men get more desperate there will be an increase in violence directed at women and more men engaging in crime and anti-social behavior.

Stanford University's Marcus Feldman told Newsweek: "With free-market economies developing (as in India and China) at the same time the number of available bride decreases, you will find women increasingly becoming commodities to be bought and sold.” [Source: Newsweek, August 28, 1995]

Preference for Boys in India

Parents favor boys for various reasons. In the north, a boy's value in agricultural endeavors is higher than a girl's, and after marriage a boy continues to live with his parents, ideally supporting them in their old age. Political scientist Philip Oldenburg notes that in some violence-prone regions of the north, having sons may enhance families' capacity to defend themselves and to exercise power. [Source: Library of Congress, 1995]

The strong preference for sons is a deeply held cultural ideal based on economic roots. Sons not only assist with farm labor as they are growing up (as do daughters) but they provide labor in times of illness and unemployment and serve as their parents' only security in old age. Surveys done by the New Delhi Operations Research Group in 1991 indicated that as many as 72 percent of rural parents continue to have children until at least two sons are born; the preference for more than one son among urban parents was tabulated at 53 percent. Once these goals have been achieved, birth control may be used or, especially in agricultural areas, it may not if additional child labor, later adult labor for the family, is deemed desirable. *

In India, where there is no universal, government-sponsored social security. Having boys is regarded as a kind “insurance policy, unemployment policy, sickness policy and old-age pension all rolled into one." Sons are expected to live with parents, earn an income, look after property, inherits land and care for parents in their old age. They are also needed to light the funeral pyres after death to ensure a smooth trip to the afterlife. One of the primary reasons that Hindus wish for a son is that only sons can carry out funeral rites. Some Hindus believe they can not have positive things occur in the afterlife unless they are cremated by a son after they die.

When asked, two out of three Indian women say they want a boy more than a girl. There is a saying that women are blessed to have a hundred sons. Many Indian families want to have two sons, and women will often not stop bearing children until this goal is met. Because the infant mortality has traditionally been high in India many parents want two son in case one of them dies.

This contrasts with sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia, where sons and daughters both care for aging parents—and sex ratios are fairly normal. Sex ratios that favor boys have been high elsewhere in Asia. In South Korea, the ratio of boys to girls peaked in 1990 at 119 to 100 and declined to 110 to 100 in 2000. Demographers attribute the change to weakening of the patriarchal family as people have become more urbanized, Westernized and independent. These changes haven't occurred in India, which remain largely agrarian.

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Burden of Girls in India

In contrast to boys, Indian girls are seen as burdens because their family must raise money for their dowry and then they leave to take care of their husband's family. A daughter’s responsibility to her family ends when she gets married. She moves in with her husband and becomes part of her husband's family, and help care of them. This is an added bonus for parents with sons. Dowries are expensive. Sometimes dowries leave the family in debt. There is a great deal of stress for parents to find a good husband for their daughter. A lot of time and energy goes into this effort. In the state of Haryana, the is an expression: raising a daughter is like watering someone else's fields."

In the late twentieth century, the values of dowries have been increasing, and, furthermore, groups that never gave dowries in the past are being pressured to do so. Thus, a girl child can represent a significant economic liability to her parents. In rice-growing areas, especially in the south, girls receive better treatment, and there is some evidence that the better treatment is related to the value of women as field workers in wet-rice cultivation. Throughout most of India, for Hindus it is important to have a son conduct funeral rites for his parents; a daughter, as a member of her husband's lineage, has not traditionally been able to do so.*

Neglect of Girls in India

In a 1993 survey conducted by the National Foundation of India, a private group working on child welfare issues, it was estimated that 300,000 newborn girls die annually from what it called “gender discrimination”.

Girls are frequently victims of underfeeding, medical neglect, sex-selective abortion, and outright infanticide. According to the 1991 census final population totals, there were 927 females per 1,000 males in India — a figure that has gradually declined from 972 females per 1,000 males in 1901 and from 934 just since 1981. Much of this imbalance is attained through neglecting the nutritional and health needs of female children, and much is also the result of inadequate health care for women of childbearing years. The sex ratio is even more imbalanced in urban areas (894 per 1,000 in 1991) than in rural areas (938 per 1,000 in 1991), partially because a large number of village men go to work in cities, leaving their wives and children behind in their rural homes. [Source: Library of Congress]

In an effort to increase the number of female births, the Indian government has offered poor families 500 rupees ($14 dollars) for the birth of a girl. In attempt to curb the practice of aborting female fetuses, the Indian Parliament passed a law with penalties of three years in jail and a fine of about $320 (half a year's salary for average Indian) for anyone found guilty of taking an ultrasound or amniocentesis pre-natal test solely to determine the sex of the fetus. Enforcing the no dowry law better would probably save many girls.

Ultrasound and Aborted Female Fetuses

The use of ultrasound and amniocentesis to detect the sex of the fetus became common in India in the 1990s. If the tests show the fetus was a girl it was often aborted. By some estimates five million female fetuses were aborted each year. The practice is still common today.

Ultrasound technology became available in the 1980s in the cities and later became available in small towns and villages thanks in part to itinerant doctors who carried compact ultrasound machines from clinic to clinic. In some cases villages with no electricity or water have access to ultrasound test with machines loaded into vans and powered by generators. The use of ultrasound has increased at a rate of 20 percent a year in the 1990s and early 2000s. Studies at some hospitals show that since ultra sound was introduced between 6 and 15 more boys and being born than girls. One Bombay clinic performed 8,000 abortion, 7,999 of them were girls.

Now ultrasound is available almost everywhere. Clinics in towns have big signs that advertise the technology. The costs doubled in the late 1990s to keep up with demand. By the early 2000s, more than 21,000 machines had been registered with the government They are legal as long as they are not used to of sex-selective abortions—even though they often are.

A law passed in 1994 by the Indian Parliament provides penalties of three years in prison and a fine of about $320 for those found guilty of administering or taking prenatal tests - mainly ultrasound scans and amniocentesis, solely to ascertain the sex of the fetus. The new law focuses on hospitals and clinics, but leaves the operators of mobile van clinics outside the law’s purview.

Use of Ultrasound to Determine Sex in India

The 1994 laws enacted to stop sex-selective abortions are easily circumvented. Some doctors respect the policy and do not reveal the sex of the fetus when they are asked. Others reveal it through hand signals or code words such as the sky is blue (for a boy) or the child resembles doll (for a girl). In poor parts of India, women who don't know the word "ultrasound," simply say " “Jaanch karvana hai”" ("I want to know"). One doctor told Reuters, "All a doctor does is whisper a negative if it’s a female foetus. Nothing has to be written on paper."

"Pay 500 rupees now and save 50,000" is a popular advertising slogan in the Punjab. It means a $16 ultrasound tests can save the $1,650 cost of a dowry. In some places advertising signs have been removed after authorities began enforcing the law on sex determination. In the 1990s, advertisements offering ultrasound testing were found in American newspapers because they were illegal in Indian newspapers. Some of them read “Desire a son?” “Choosing the sex of your baby: new scientific reality,” “Pregnant? Wanna know the gender of your baby now?”

The ratio of girls to boys is lower in relatively prosperous states like Punjab and Haryana because the middle- and upper-class women can more easily afford the ultrasound tests and abortions than poor people. The cost of an ultrasound test and abortion is often around $250, beyond the means of most poor Indians. The abortion rate is particularly high among women who have already given birth to daughters.

One doctor who administered ultrasound tests told the New York Times: "Of course, the women want only a boy. If we tell them it is a girl, they will feel very sorry, there will be sadness in their face, and they will be looking as though will have a nervous breakdown. And the husband will be saying right away, 'O.K. you are going for an abortion." [Source: John Burns, New York Times]

In the Punjab, couples who abort female fetuses are known as “kudi-narr”, daughter-killers. One doctor in Delhi told The Times of one “woman who is young and married, with no children” and she “terminated all three pregnancies because it was a girl.”

Female Infanticide in India

Girls sometimes killed after birth or die because they given less care and food than boys. That girls are victims of fatal neglect and murder has been thoroughly discussed in the Indian press and in scholarly investigations. It has been noted that infant girls are killed with potions of opium in Rajasthan and pastes of poisonous oleander in Tamil Nadu — most especially girls preceded by the birth of several sisters. Clinics offering ultrasound and amniocentesis in order to detect and abort female fetuses have become popular in various parts of the country, and many thousands of female fetuses have been so destroyed. In Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Punjab such selective abortions have been outlawed because of pressure from feminist groups. More usually, girls are simply fed and cared for less well than their brothers. [Source: Library of Congress]

Police in New Delhi have found bodies of baby girls tossed in piles of cow dung, public latrines and in garbage bins. The custom has been practiced for some time. The British described female infanticide in the 18th century and discovered entire villages without a single female child.

Most babies in rural areas are delivered by midwives. For an extra fee they will get rid of unwanted females. Midwives are often paid more for disposing of a female baby than delivering a healthy one. Sometimes after a midwife delivers a baby girl she grabs the baby by the waist and twists its back, breaking her spine, killing her. Most often the girls are smothered or suffocated. In Rajasthan girls are buried alive. In Madya Pradesh they are have tobacco leaves stuffed down their throat. Mothers sometimes are ordered to kill their own daughters after the father decides. They are sometimes starved; sometimes poisoned with opium balls. Infanticide has not only been practiced in India. It used to be common in China and occurs from time to time among American teenagers with unwanted children. During periods of social unrest and food shortages in the 1930s, anthropologists said that every mother in an Ayoreo Indian village in the Chaco region of Paraguay committed infanticide at least once.

In July 2003, a baby girl was rescued alive 15 hours after she was buried by her father. The girl survived because of air pockets between the stones used to bury her. The father buried the girl because he already had two daughters and didn’t want one more. The mother reported the incident to police almost immediately after it happened but police did not respond until the next day because unspecified “legalities.” [Source: Reuters]

Image Sources:

Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, Compton’s Encyclopedia, The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, AFP, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, The Economist, Foreign Policy, Wikipedia, BBC, CNN, and various books, websites and other publications.

Last updated June 2015


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