FEMALE FETICIDE

You have been hearing about female feticide. It’s been on the media, every where and suddenly this topic is being discussed among all. Work has been going on in India regarding  this issue since long but unfortunately it had never bothered the minds of the general public of Orissa till the 15^th of July`07. On this fateful day the infamous Nayagarh female feticide was first reported and it took on as a rage in Orissa.

On the 9^th of June’07, the first national daughtrs’day ( Nandini Diwas ) was inaugurated by the Hon’ble Governor of Orissa H Ex. Rameshwar Thakur. That very day Project ‘Nandini’ too was launched... Project ‘Nandini’ is a social cause project for the semi urban & rural women of India. Project Nandini is encouraged by the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh. Project Nandini is a flagship social cause undertaken by Smt. Nandini Satpathy Memorial Trust (SNSMT).

Project Nandini along with other issues also advocates the ban on pre natal sex determination & female feticide.

Why support the cause ?

World wide sex ratio is approximately 105 women: 100 men but in India there are less than 93 women to every 100 men. The cause being the practice of female feticide, prompted by the existence of social evils like dowry etc. It is very unfortunate that the birth of a girl child does not bring happiness to the family but it signals the beginning of financial burden & extreme hardship ( there are few intelligent who do not think this way and I admire them ). If you thought female feticide is a practice only among the economically challenged people then you are highly mistaken it is very much prevalent in the affluent side of the society. The culprit are the social norms . These norms need to be challenged; this discrimination between a boy & a girl child needs to be put to an end. We understand that this is a very difficult task but we have to accept the hardships which come along to achieve our aim, we must be determined for the same. Lets be sensitive to our Nandinis’ and let’s not kill them before they are born ( Nandini is a Sanskrit word which means daughter). Imagine a world with out a mother, sister, wife and nandini. Just imagine if it would have been possible for you to have seen the light of this world and  been able to read this text with no women on earth? 

A few years back in small towns diagnostic centers openly flaunted sex determination & abortion advertisements reading ‘Spend Rs.500/- now and save Rs.5,00,000/- later’. All of us are very much aware of these practices but we give a blind eye and a deaf ear to the fact. We do not understand the far fetched detrimental ill effect of this issue. It is not only the duty of the administration & the law enforcement authorities to curb or check this evil it is our moral responsibility too as good citizens to be sensitive towards this cause.

A leading International social agency in the year 1990 gave a report that 40-50 million girls have gone ‘missing’ in India. They termed it ‘missing’ as the girls were either murdered as a fetus or with in  few hours after birth. It is a bitter truth that the ladies who assist child birth ( Daee in Odia ) are the ones who are paid some where between Rs.50/- to Rs.150/- to kill the female babies the moment they are born.

There are a few unethical doctors, who are not fit for the profession ,who engage in the practice of pre natal sex determination and female feticides. To punish such undeserving medical practitioners the Indian Medical Association also actively recommends derecognizing of the culprit doctors from the medial council. We are thankful to the population foundation of India to have set up practice of registering the ultrasound machines to prevent its miss use. All we need is to keep a strict vigil; on the same for implementation.

We have the law in place. The pre-natal diagnostic techniques (regulation prevention and miss use act 1994) the PNDT act, clearly mentions that sex-determination of a unborn child is a crime and doctors & radiologists conducting or soliciting patients for pre-natal sex determination attracts an imprisonment of five years and fined up to Rs.50,000/- (our advocacy efforts are on to increase the imprisonment tenure to 14 years of RI or capital punishment if abortion is conducted after the fetus attain a minimum age of 18 weeks).

IMPLICATIONS OF DEPLETING SEX RATIO –

1)      Increase the sex related crimes against women.

2)      Increase in social problems like rape, forced polyandry etc.

3)      Increase in cases of STD & HIV/AIDS.

4)      Leads to physical, physiological & psychological disorder.

5)      Health of a woman is affected.

To get rid of the menace of depleting sex ration we need to stop.

1)      Pre-natal sex determination & female feticide.

2)      Mindset or Obsession to have a son.

3)      Discrimination against a girl child.

4)      Socioeconomic & physical insecurity of women.

5)      The practice of dowry system.