Let's save a girl child and stand against the genocide that is taking place in the society. Feticide is the most dastardly form of violence against women. Since the technology for sex estimation first came into being, sex selective abortion has unleashed a saga of bad dream in India. In fact nature intended the womb to be a safe space place for nurturing and grooming the foetus before the child could take birth. But today, doctors have made it the most unsafe space for the female child by unleashing the terror of feticide. Today a girl child is several times more likely to be eliminated before birth in India than die of varied causes in the first year of her existence.
Save a girl child: Sex estimation and sex selection
Nuclear Weapons
Although foetal sex estimation and sex choice is a criminal offence in India, the custom is rampant. Inexpressive clinics with ultrasound machines and other newest technologies are doing brisk business. Everywhere, population are paying to know the sex of an unborn child and paying more to abort the female child. The technology has even reached remote areas of the country through facilities like mobile clinics. population are getting sex estimation done even for the first child.
Save a Girl Child: Historical association and widespread discrimination against the girl child
Earlier when the technology was not ready to know the sex of the foetus, the girl child used to be killed by putting a sand bag on her face or strangulating her or some poison used to be applied on the breasts of the mother. The irony was that neither mothers nor their house members used to express any kind of sorrow on the deaths of their baby daughters. Now the scenario has changed. With the help of new technologies one can categorically detect the sex of the foetus. So the custom of female infanticide has been replaced by female feticide.
Save a girl child: Discrimination against the girl child and women
Female feticide and infanticide is not the only issues with a girl child in India. categorically at every stage of life she is discriminated and neglected for basic nutrition, instruction and living standard. When she is in the womb, she is eliminated before she can enter the world. If by opening she takes birth then at the time of birth her relatives pull her back and wrung her neck and after killing her she is thrown into a trash can. If she gets lucky to survive the early feticide and infanticide then her childhood is not more than a punishment with her brother getting all the attentiveness with new shoes, dresses and books to learn while she is gifted a broom, a wiper and lots of tears. In her teenage, she misses nutritious food to eat and gets only the left over crumbs. While the age when she should be in college she is hurriedly "married off" important to conditions where she remains ever dependant on others for her survival. She does not have whether public or economic independence. Added her illiteracy, lack of instruction results in unwanted and early pregnancies, high fertility rate. This Added aggravates the widespread health of females in the country. Again if this female gives birth to a girl child, the whole journey cycle of murder and discrimination begins all over again.
Save a Girl Child: Culpability of the curative profession
As per some studies the manufactures of ultrasound and sonography, sex-selection and female feticide is nearby 500 crores in India and this is run through small clinics, midwives, unregistered doctors and big hospitals. They show the way the abortions very conspiratorially and many a times they come to be the suspect for the death of many women. Many Doctors are complex in this widespread malpractice to make easy money. categorically it is a very profitable business. The machines have come to be cheaper, so even a new curative graduate can quickly set up a business. It may be illegal but it's very rare that in India curative council debars whatever for ethical malpractice.
Save a girl child: responsibility and responsibility of the curative profession
It is high time that now Doctors are made responsible and accountable. In fact they are the ones who had aggressively promoted the misuse of technology and legitimised feticide. They created a weapon of mass destruction. Worst of worst some Doctors feel that they are doing a great public aid and feel happy to provide this aid to parents desperate to have a son, in the trust that they are preventing the birth of an unwanted child.
Save a girl child: The oblique way of sex determination
Today when the laws are getting stricter the method of revealing the sex is becoming more oblique. Now whether the doctor will hand out blue or pink candy to the house members as they leave or make a remark While the exam by saying something like "Your child will be a fighter" or "The baby is like a doll." It is a clear fact that since the implementation of the legislation has taken place, the company has gone underground. The proof is the ever addition amount of feticide nearby the country especially in north India.
Save a girl child: Under-the-table fee for sex determination
Now the Doctors who disclose the sex expect an under-the-table fee for breaking the law, fluctuating from a few hundred rupees in poorer areas to several thousand in more prosperous regions. The plain and uncomplicated truth is that the curative fraternity has not been sufficiently regulated in India and there is no adequate deterrent or awareness even among the curative fraternity which can forestall these malpractices from taking place in the first instance.
Save a Girl Child: The Actual qoute in terms of figures
Let's now look at the figures which speak the truth for itself. According to the last lawful census figures, India with its nationwide ratio of 933 women for 1,000 men had a deficit of 35 million women when it entered the new millennium. Experts are calling it "sanitised barbarism". Un figures tell that about 750,000 girls are aborted every year in India. It as genocide: "More than 6 million killed in 20 years. That's the amount of Jews killed in the Holocaust."
Save a girl child: Abortion of a million foetus in a year
Demographic trends indicate India is fast heading towards a million female foetuses aborted each year. In India, if the 1991 Census showed that two districts had a child sex ratio (number of girls per thousand boys) less than 850; by 2001 it was 51 districts. The irony is that the nation of so called goddess and mothers still follows a culture where population idolize the birth of son and mourn the birth of daughters.
Save a girl child: revenue level directly proportional to sex selective abortion
Ironically, as revenue levels are increasing, sex estimation and sex choice is addition all over India. The most influential and affluent pockets have the worst sex ratios. Take Punjab for instance - 793 girls for every 1,000 boys against the national frame of 927. Or South Delhi - one of the most affluent localities of the Capital - 760. In many regions of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan; the sex ratio of girls for every 1000 boys was mere 745 or 754 or at 779 respectively. Based on the amount of births in Delhi every year and the sex ratio over the capital - 814 girls for every 1,000 boys about 24,000 female fetuses are aborted in the capital every year, and about one million over the country.
Save a girl child: Warning of unexpected public problems in the near future
Abortion rates are addition in roughly 80% of the Indian states and especially in Punjab and Haryana. These two states have the top amount of abortions every year. Unicef has warned that unless steps are taken to address the qoute over the country, India will soon face unexpected public problems like men unable to find brides, gaps in the work force and increased trafficking of women.
Save a girl child: Answering ethical questions
The other side of the coin is the issue that attempts to regulate women right to abortion inevitably raise delicate ethical questions, but for a contrary like India this is not a pro-choice or pro-life issue. "Equality is a basal right," but where is the gender equality when one million girl fetuses are destroyed every year before birth itself. Therefore we need to understand the fact that our situation is categorically alarming and remarkable and preventing this discrimination takes precedence over arguments about women reproductive rights.
Save a girl child: The taboo surrounding sex selective abortion
One more major qoute is that despite the prevalence of the ghastly and inhuman phenomenon, the decision to abort a female fetus remains a taboo, and it is difficult to persuade women to talk about the issue. If women themselves come to be party to the qoute then how can we ever think about finding the solution?
Save a Girl Child: Misuse of technology
The public evil of discrimination and marginalization of women and killing of girl child is ironically deep rooted in Indian ethos and the most shocking fact is that the innovative and hard high end technologies have categorically helped in the brutal killing of the Indian girl child. Earlier it was infanticide. Now it is easier with feticide with technology at the helping end. Innovative techniques, like biopsy, ultrasound, scan tests and amniocentesis, devised to detect genetic abnormalities, are very misused by amount of families to detect gender of the unborn child. These clinical tests are very contributing to the rise in genocide of the unborn girl child.
Save a girl child: The technology as the devil
In patriarchal States like Rajasthan where infanticide has existed for centuries, this new technology has many takers as it is easy and secretive. There are far less questions to be answered when you abort a girl child rather than kill a baby girl. Today, population pretend overtly that they are modern and that they do not discriminate between a girl and a boy. But when the actual situation arises they do not hesitate to quietly go to the next village and get an ultrasound done and even abort the girl child. Here the technology has come to be the uncontrolled beast and demon rather than the angel.
Save a Girl Child: associated & associated issues
Apart from the means of killing of the girl child "feticide" is also one of the most coarse causes of maternal mortality. Law permits that the she sex of the foetus can be only determined nearby 14-16 weeks. Because of this most of the sex selective abortions are planned late and this leads to a very high opening of maternal mortality. whether way the woman suffers.
Save a girl child: Feticide a indication of illness of a larger problem
We must understand the fact that in fact Feticide is a indication of illness of larger and wider qoute associated to marginalization and discrimination against women through varied social, cultural and economic bias and practices. Feticide is associated to issues as varied as privatisation of curative instruction and dowry. For example Karnataka is a state in India with the top amount of Inexpressive curative colleges. Here healthcare has turned into a commodity without proper regulation and operate important to frightful consequences like illegal abortions and feticide.
Save a girl child: Affluent farmers and feticide
Another ironical phenomenon is that wherever agricultural green revolution has happened with resultant growth in revenue among farmers, feticide has increased. The association is simple. With more landholdings and wealth inheritance the dowry demands has increased and therefore birth of a daughter is determined as an economic liability. Today, population don't even want their daughters to study higher as a well-educated groom is likely to examine more dowry.
Save a girl child: Male child choice in nuclear families
Even the creation of small and nuclear families have come at the cost of the girl child. Parents who are opting for one child are most likely to go for a male child rather than a female child.
Save a girl child: examine Vs. provide debate
Another issue that has been put transmit by the curative community to absolve their own culpability in this whole malpractice is the examine and provide debate. Doctors say there is a public examine and they are only fulfilling it. They argue that public attitudes must change. However they are ignoring the fact that in this case provide fuels demand. The easier the technology is ready the more likely is the opening of abortion and feticide.
Save a girl child: Tougher regulation and control
There is no choice other than tougher regulation and operate of the "technology and the curative practice" as technology in the hands of greedy, vested interests cannot be neutral. There is a law in place to forestall misuse of the technology and it must be enforced strongly. On the other hand the solution for curbing the growth of feticide can only work through addition awareness and widespread empowerment of women in every aspect.
Save a girl child: Need for female youth icons and role models
Women participation in workforce, having disposable incomes and their development a contribution to larger community will make a disagreement to how women are seen in the society. Female youth icons and role models are assuredly development an impact in changing the widespread perception of the community which has been very discriminatory till now.
Save a girl child: Laws against violence and discrimination of women
Other issues which are attached to the widespread discrimination and marginalization of women contain the laws for violence against women such as dowry, domestic violence, rape which are directly in the operate of a largely inefficient and corrupt police force which in fact is biased against women with its colonial hangover and resultant coming of doing things. In any case of violence and discrimination against women the whole onus and burden of the case is all the time put on the women involved.
Save a girl child: Urgent need for police reforms
It's high time that police reforms take place and the country gets a modern police force which is more sensitive to the issues of the community rather than the current one which exists to please the whims and the fancies of their political masters. Today even though good and tough laws exist still the offenders get away with ease. Just like many other laws of the country the law preventing sex estimation and sex choice exits but compulsion is a big examine mark.
Save a girl child: Myths to be shattered
Another myth that needs to be shattered is that feticide exists among illiterate and less affluent of the society. According to a inspect there is a 28.32 % growth in the amount gainfully employed and working women in India in the last two decades. But at the same time, what is more shameful and ironical is that there is a subsequent growth in the amount of pregnancy terminations or abortions by working women.
Save a girl child: Abortions by working women
The reasons stated behind the custom of abortions by working women are: They want a small family; they want good work prospects; they want a male child and they do not want daughters. Many of these women clarify sex choice and abortions because they think that if they deliver a baby boy then they are looked upon in the family. Also, they do not want their daughters to suffer the hardships a girl has to face. Besides that they find themselves unable to afford the dowry expenses the parents of a girl child have to bear. "Since maintaining the high living standards has come to be so expensive, who will save for her?" say modern mothers. These are the 'serious' reasons these literate and modern women give for not giving birth to a girl child. But they are forgetting that had their mothers plan the same way, they would have also met the same fate.
Save a girl child: The bane of buyer culture
Further the whole qoute is just an prolongation of our buyer culture. If someone can afford to buy a Mercedes, they feel they can afford to gain themselves a son also. If they can pay for an ultrasound, then they don't need to have a daughter - that's the logic.
Save a girl child: Outdated public practices and their consequences
Dowry is a big issue for the urban elite because the amount which population are expected to pay as dowry is remarkable and ridiculous. Over that is the cost of the obscenely extravagant Indian weddings. Aside from the costs of dowries and marriages, there are other reasons why daughters are seen as less desirable like there is general trust that sons will look after their old parents and daughters are anyway to go to a distinct household and are therefore of not much use in the long run. The public and cultural settings are negatively biased against women. After marriage, a woman traditionally lives with the house of the husband, leaving her own parents to be looked after by a son, if there is one, in their old age. Sons carry on the house name and often the business, normally inherit the property and achieve the last rites. All these contribute towards a negative bias against the girl child even before she takes birth.
Save a girl child: The misconception that poverty leads to feticide
From the above prognosis we can clearly see that it's a misconception to think that this is a qoute associated to greatest poverty. It's quite rampant in upper and middle class families. Female feticide is very high in Punjab and Haryana - some of the best-off states in the country. Even money has not brought attitudinal change. In fact more money has led to aggravation of the whole problem. The mind-set remains - girls are not important, girls are a burden, and sons are more useful. With new lifestyle culture in India, when population are rich they want to spend their money on things, not on dowries or marriages for their daughters. So we can see that how public and cultural practices like dowry and extravagant marriages are in fact contributing to the widespread menace of female abortion and feticide.
Save a Girl Child: Law against feticide and Implementation of the law
After roughly a decade of delays, the Prohibition of Sex choice Act came into force in February 2003, aimed at preventing the use of ultrasound examinations for sex determination. Any someone including pregnant women who seek help for sex choice could be sentenced to a three-year prison sentence and fined 50,000 rupees, or ,200, while If any doctor is found guilty of this malpractice, he can face suspension of his registration by the state curative council.
Save a girl child: The Act that was passed in 2003
Pre-conception and pre-natal diagnostics techniques (prohibition and sex selection) Act, which came into effect on 14th February 2003, was as a exchange of the pre-natal diagnostic techniques (regulation and misuse amendment) Act 2002, that said any kind of sex choice in pre or post pregnancy is prohibited.
Save a girl child: Creating acts and laws not adequate to deal with the problem
But these acts seem not to be casting much effect on the dark shades of human deeds. No case has come to court, and campaigners against the custom of prenatal sex estimation complain that the legislation is impossible to enforce. Law is very well conceived and the need of the hour is legal literacy to ensure the law is implemented. Here the role and competence of the law compulsion agencies is a big examine mark? In spite of all the stringent laws framed to curb the female feticide, the custom continues. The declining sex ratio between boys and girls poses a serious threat to the very existence of a balanced public order in India.
Save a Girl Child: Sensitization of the society
There is a need to sensitize the Indian community about the sex choice tests and the impending gender crisis. There is a need to advocate to the community about greater gender equality. growth awareness about the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Act (Pndt), 1994 as well as its modern amendment passed by the Parliament that bans any form of sex choice tests is needed.
Save a girl child: Awareness in the society
Society has to be sensitized about the pitiable state of women in the Indian community of which selective sex abortion of the female foetus is one of the indicators apart from addition incidences of violence and trafficking.
Save a girl child: Implementation of the law
Law needs to be strictly implemented and we need to growth compliance amongst the maternity homes, nursing homes, ultra-sound clinics, radiologists for registering their ultra-sound machines under the Pndt Act. curative community has to be sensitized about the ethics of curative profession and the role they ought to be playing in improving the population accident as well as sex-ratios in the country. It's also time to have a stricter and tougher regulation of the curative custom in India.
Save a girl child: Changing the attitude
There is a need to build a dialogue amongst the stakeholders as well as track inter-generational convert amongst the women through varied generations. Achievements of the prosperous women from distinct strata of the community as well as from distinct walks of life need to be highlighted to convert the attitude of the community against women.
Save a Girl Child: end comments
There needs to be widespread illustrated contempt and anger in community against the "genocide" against women. Today nobody can say female feticide is not their qoute when more than one million girl foetuses are been selectively destroyed every year in the country. It's high time we all did our bit to help save the girl child as time is categorically running out for the girl child in India. The disastrous consequences of what is happening today will be felt in other 10-20 years time. Therefore to forestall a horrible future the need of the hour is to perceive our responsibilities and give a halt to this evil crime of killing the girl child in the womb itself. A determined drive can start a spark to light the lamp and show the world that we categorically are the land of the great goddesses and mothers.
Save a Girl Child
No comments:
Post a Comment