Girls not wanted….Prachi Pinglay
2011 CENSUS In Maharashtra, 23 of 33 districts have lower child sex ratios than the national average. In Jalna district, which has among the lowest ratios, sex determination tests and female foeticide are open secrets
2011 CENSUS In Maharashtra, 23 of 33 districts have lower child sex ratios than the national average. In Jalna district, which has among the lowest ratios, sex determination tests and female foeticide are open secrets
ANVI, JALNA DISTRICT: Among the few educated women in her village, Saraswati (not her real name) convinced her daughter not to undergo a sex determination test during her second pregnancy even after her first child turned out to be a girl.
But when the second child also turned out to be a girl, her in-laws began ill-treating her daughter and the child.
I could convince my daughter but how can I change society? asked Saraswati, sitting at her place of work, which she did not want disclosed.
Like Saraswati, her daughter has completed high school; she then married a farm worker who has studied up to Class 10. But most families in Anvi marry off their daughters at an even younger age, soon after they attain puberty, and many deliver their first child before they turn 20.
These women are even more vulnerable to harassment if they do not produce boys, Saraswati says. As a result, women who have not given birth to a boy routinely undergo sex determination tests, which are illegal, and abort the foetus if it is a girl, she says.
Almost all the dozen women who had gathered at the village’s anganwadi, or childcare centre, on a scorching afternoon last week admitted that they had either been through a sex determination test or knew doctors who do it.
The data suggest that female foeticide is a big problem: the district’s child sex ratio, already fell from an already skewed 903 girls per 1,000 boys in the 2001 census to 847 in the 2011 census.
This ratio is the sixth lowest of the state’s 33 districts, and in percentage terms, the fall is the fifth sharpest.
Jalna belongs to Maharashtra’s relatively backward Marathwada region.
Employment in Anvi, for example, is limited: most men get seasonal jobs cutting sugarcane and picking cotton. Poverty is widespread.
But India’s second-most populous state has not fared well as a whole: the 2011 census shows that the child sex ratios 23 districts of Maharashtra, India’s second-most populous state, fall below the national average of 914 girls per 1,000 boys.
Like elsewhere in India, a deeply patriarchal social structure, which makes girls a burden and boys assets, encourages female foeticide: while parents must pay dowries to get their daughters married, they look to their sons to take care of them in old age.
Saraswati paid a hefty dowry for her daughter, buying virtually all her household items, from a bucket to a television. She continues to spend on her daughter, she says.
The social milieu also allows men to marry again and again in search of a male heir, which also puts pressure on women to give birth to a boy quickly to hold on to their husbands.
Women themselves ask for abortions for this reason, says Subhadra Bhlerao, the village midwife.
Added to ancient social forces that favour boys over girls is the more modern economic compulsion of keeping the family small, which reduces the window within which a woman can hope to bear a boy.
A woman can no longer keep getting pregnant in the hope that the next child will be a boy, says Saraswati.
Under these circumstances, the only way for a woman to ensure she bears a boy is to undergo a series of sex determination tests, and abort if necessary.
VIOLATING THE LAW
To avoid attracting attention, the women travel long distances, to faraway villages, to undergo the test.
The sonography clinics have their own tricks to stay out of trouble. In these parts, they have evolved a system whereby if they call a woman to collect the sonography report on a Friday, it means that the foetus is female because that’s Goddess Durga’s day. If they call a woman on a Monday, Lord’ Siva’s day, then it is male. The clinics will, of course, say nothing about the sex of the foetus on the report itself. If it is a girl, the family takes the pregnant woman to another clinic for an abortion. The whole process costs about Rs 10,000 depending on how advanced the pregnancy is and how risky the abortion consequently is, say activists and the women. Although the Prohibition of Sex Selection Act makes doctors and family members, except the mother, punishable for any attempts at sex determination, no doctor has yet been convicted and sentenced in Jalna district.
Of the 128 sonography centres in Jalna district 77 are governmental.
Nearly 20 registrations have been cancelled so far for violations in form submissions and record maintenance but none for sex determination.
Doctors are white-collared professionals and if a few culprits go to jail, everyone will step back, says Dr Sanjay Rakh in Jalna city.
However, authorities say they do not get any complaint or proof because the doctors and the patients are in collusion. Conducting sting operations with the help of NGOs is an option but has not yielded any results. Both the civil surgeon and the district health officer agreed that preference for male child is hard to overcome.
Activists insist that social change is crucial. It should be understood as an act of violence against women, says Manisha Gupte, who has worked extensively on this issue. The denial of education to women, their exploitation, domestic violence and sex determination are all linked.