Female foeticide

Many times a day I see a poster hanging on the door of my office. With the catchy title “Missing daughters” it depicts maps of the Indian states and respective numbers for each state. When just joined CSR India as socially unawares and innocent as I was I got an idea of poor girls disappearing… trafficking in people or something… It did not take long, as far as I started with the readings on social issues, to realize the reason for daughters to miss. Ominous term “female foeticide” entered my essential vocabulary used to describe the contemporary India.

Basically, female foeticide is a practice of selective elimination of the female foetus after prenatal sex determination or sex pre-selection, thus avoiding the birth of a girl child.

Legislation-wise, sex determination of unborn child in India is banned under Pre-conception and pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994. Moreover, utilization of ultra-sonography, amniocentesis to determine and communicate the sex of an unborn is punishable under the law since January 1996. As far as abortion itself is concerned, it was legalized in India in 1971 with the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act.

Now… why would anyone be so concerned about sex-selective abortion? Is not that a right of parents to determine the sex of their baby to be born? And what is so threatening about the prevalence of boys in the society? For me, coming from Russia with just the opposite demographical situation (prevalence of women attributed to still hard felt consequences of the Second World War when we lost millions of men) these concerns with missing daughters seemed somewhat strange. Not until I gave it a thought and researched the literature.

Female foeticide is a major explanatory indicator for child sex ratio (number of girls per 1000 of boys in 0–6 y.o.) of the country. In turn, distorted child sex ratio has a number of important implications for the nation as such. Lesser women in population may further worsen their status in the society. In particular, it may give a rise to violence against women, sexual harassment, rape and abduction. Experts also predict forced polyandry, increased prostitution and the respective rise of HIV as the indirect cost of female foeticide. On the women’s part, the alarming consequences are psychological disorders and health hazards caused by poorly conducted sex-determination procedures and numerous abortions. And it is women’s health that significantly determines health and reproduction of the nation. Quite convincing to get concerned.

As big the concern is as cumbersome it appears to estimate its scope. According to Minister of state for Health and Family Welfare Panabaka Lakshmi, as female foeticides take place secretly, no authentic figures are available. Census 2001 reveals only the number of the cases registered with police under “Crime against women”: quoted as 50-90 cases a year (throughout 1997-2003) these figures appear incredibly small. Yet, according to the conservative estimates of a research team from University of Toronto in Canada and the Institute of Medical Education in Chandigarh, India prenatal sex determination and selective abortion accounts for 500,000 missing girls yearly. The research team found that when the first birth was a girl, at the second birth there were 759 girls born to every 1,000 boys. At the third birth, the sex ratio declined further to 719 girls to every 1,000 boys when the first two births were girls. By contrast, when the first or second child was a boy, the number of girls born at second or subsequent births exceeded the number of boys .

Another study reveals that out of 15 million abortions carried out in the world in 1997, India alone accounted for 4 million (27%), 90 per cent of which were intended to eliminate the girl child while Indian population comprised 16,5% of world population in 1997 .

In the absence of the adequate statistics on female foeticide only may use indirect indicators to assess the scope of the phenomenon. Only regarding usage of ultrasound, as per reports received on 31st October 2005 from states and UTs, 27399 units/clinics using ultrasound, image scanners etc have been registered under pre-conception and pre-natal diagnostic techniques (PC and PNDT) Act 1994 . And this is considering not well-developed healthcare system in the country. This figure does not obviously provide for unregistered equipment in usage. From my own experience, fences and walls on the streets pestryat advertisements such as “abortion without medicaments”, “pregnancy tests” etc. Whereas ultrasound may be available only for middle and upper class urban women, still nearly three-fourths of the women in the suburban area knew about the sex determination test according to some research . In fact, ultrasound is not the only available sex-determination technology.

If to use child sex ratio as a benchmark for the female foeticide occurrence one faces the figure of 927 (girls for 1000 boys) for all-India, 793 for Punjab (the worst child sex-ratio) and 964 for Andhra Pradesh (the most favourable child sex-ration). Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Gujarat, Rajastan, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra appear below the country-average. In general, the northern states show much more distorted sex-ratio than southern ones. It is interesting to note that areas of Punjab and Haryana are the most prosperous states in the country, and Gujarat and Maharashtra are the most industrialized ones. This data questions the commonly shared belief that level of education and wealth should negatively correlate with occurrence of female foeticide. Therefore, this is not lack of education or financial means to support daughters that mainly contributes to the existence of female foeticide.


In fact, female foeticide is deeply rooted in societal norms and practices of Indian society.

 According to Hindu beliefs a son alone can perform the last rites, which ensure salvation of the soul after death.

 It is the son who carries the family name and lineage.

 Parents are considered to be the “trustees” of their daughters, who belongs to ‘another family’ and in reality, is only a ‘guest’ till she is married off into her matrimonial home.

 The investments into bringing up daughters (caring, protecting their sexuality, arranging for grooms, dowry and life long gifts) are prohibitive considering the low or even negative returns for the family.

As a consequence of social practices and beliefs, a number of economic reasons come:

 Dowry: Having son means growing family property, whereas having daughter means departing with some of the families’ material possessions once she gets married. The same goes for inheritance rights that, once fixed for daughter, would go from family as a part of dowry. Therefore, daughters are seen as a liability for family, while sons are welcome as a definite asset.
Property considerations seem so strong that until very recently in the south of India marriages between cousins were common with the idea to keep the property in the family.

 Labour market discrimination: men are likely to get better jobs and get higher pays then women. Therefore, son is seen as a major source of family income who also support the elderly parents.

To realize the strength of the social pressure on woman, one may think of the following data. According to a study of suburban women 95% of them would favor termination of pregnancy if they knew that the foetus is female. 46% of them were actually prepared to terminate a pregnancy if the foetus were female, while the remaining 54 percent despite a favorable attitude, said that they would not actually do so as they had either completed their family or had two sons. Moreover, 18 percent of the respondents were ready to abort a female foetus even though they considered it a sin . This explains the paradox of social compulsion and individual choice. According to social norms they considered abortion a sin, and yet, female foeticide was acceptable for them.

What to do? And are there any effective interventions possible at all? How do you address the issue that is so intimately related with such core social realities as dowry, low social status of women, patriarchic society? The culture that took thousand of years to build does not take short time to change… Do you just opuskat’ ruki and watch worsening sex-ratio?… Who is to be responsible? Who is to intervene? How to intervene?