City too prefers the boy child ………Malathy Iyer | TNN
Mumbai: Mumbai still loves boys more than girls. Seven years after Census 2001 revealed that 923 girls were born in the city for every 1,000 boys, TOI discovered on Wednesday that in 2007, only 921 girls were born for every 1,000 boys.
The discovery of the worsening male-to-female ratio for births coincided with more raids on clinics in the city, leading to the sealing of nine more sonography machines on Wednesday. The team from the Supreme Court-appointed National Inspection and Monitoring Committee (NIMC) has now sealed a total of 11 sonography machines in two days.
The NIMC team is monitoring the implementation of the Pre-Natal Diagnostics Techniques (PNDT) Act, 1994, which bars parents from using technology to discover the sex of their child. The startling figures for births registered with the BMC show that fewer girls were born than boys in every month of 2007. While mother nature meant for the girl child to be stronger than the boy child at birth, the statistics show she is missing in alarming numbers. The ratio was as low as 911 girls born for every 1,000 boys in May 2007 and 939 in February. (See chart on page 4)
Dr J Thanekar, the BMCs executive health officer, sought to clarify that the ongoing raids by the central team were not in any way related to the skewed child sex ratio in the city. It is only about maintaining paperwork, he said, explaining that the sonography centres raided had not been following proper red tape. But Thanekar conceded that Mumbais sex ratio was worrying.
The NIMC team will be in the larger Mumbai Metropolitan Region for two more days, said member Varsha Deshpande. Machines in three clinics in Chembur, two in Kurla and one in Govandi were sealed on Wednesday.
In Every Month Of 2007, Fewer Females Were Born In Mumbai As Compared To Males
Mumbai: It has been seven years since the national census revealed that the countrys financial capital is as biased as the rest of the nation against the girl child, but little has changed. Birth registration figures across the city have revealed that in 2007 there were fewer girls born than boys in each of the 12 months of the last year.
CONTINUING MYSTERY OF MUMBAIS MISSING GIRLS
In Every Month Of 2007, Fewer Females Were Born In Mumbai As Compared To Males
Mumbai: It has been seven years since the national census revealed that the countrys financial capital is as biased as the rest of the nation against the girl child, but little has changed. Birth registration figures across the city have revealed that in 2007 there were fewer girls born than boys in each of the 12 months of the last year.
Experts feel that the skewed sex ratio is an indication that female foeticide is still rampant, even in a city like Mumbai which has high literacy and better quality-of-life indicators than other cities.
In 1992, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen had statistically worked out that 37 million girls were missing in India. Missing girls is the term he had coined for the terrible deficity of women in substantial parts of Asia and North Africa. He had pegged the missing girls figure at 100 million worldwide. The theory that missing girl children were the result of sexselected abortions and foeticide then gained ground. (For India, a rebel theory claims that a hepatitis-B epidemic in the 1970s caused the deaths of large numbers of female children.)
In 2007, the male-female sex ratio ranged from as low as 911 girls per 1,000 boys born in May to 939 girls in February. If the number of girl children born is consistently lower, then it certainly feels like something is happening to keep the numbers that way, said A L Sharda of the NGO Population First, hinting that female foeticide and sex-selected abortions have emerged as a burning problem in modern India.
The NGO had in 2007 conducted a survey of 39 sonography clinics in Chembur and found that 38 had failed to adhere to the stringent rules laid down by the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PNDT) Act, 1994.
The average child sex ratio for Mumbai in 2007 computed with the birth chart stands at 921 girls per 1,000 boys, two lower than the Census 2001 figure of 923. The national average as per the 2001 Census was 934, higher than Mumbais poor show. The city ratio for 2007 stood at 921, said a civic official.
Mumbai is worse than other cities, which is in itself worrying, said Varsha Deshpande, an advocate who is a member of the National Inspection and Monitoring Committee set up under the direction of the Supreme Court. An NIMC team is presently in Mumbai checking sonography centres.
While Maharashtras child sex ratio in 2001 stood at 916, Bihar had a ratio of 944. West Bengal scored 963, Chattisgarh 982 and Tamil Nadu 933. Maharashtra, in fact, was identified by demographers as one of the worst states along with Punjab (799), Gujarat (906) and Delhi (850).
The birth registrations for 2007 for Mumbai show that 92,883 boys were born as opposed to just 85,519 girls. Thats 7,364 fewer girls.
The ongoing raids on Mumbais clinics by the Supreme Court-appointed NIMC underline the need for more stringent implementation of the PNDT Act, felt activists. If one follows the PNDT Act to a T, then the law will work, explained Deshpande, who is a member of the state authorisation committee on PNDT. The rules of the PNDT Act entail that every pregnant woman who undergoes a sonography screening should fill up Form F, which is a comprehensive 1 9 – c o l u m n form needing details such as the stage of the pregnancy, address, doctors name and so on. The piece of paper cannot lie. It can stand as evidence, Deshpande added. The Form F can help authorities track down women after their pregnancy, thus providing a way of ensuring that no child was aborted. But why is Mumbai so boy-child centric? According to Sharda, It is possibly because Mumbai has a total fertility rate of 1.1. So a couple that is going to have only one child prefers a boy in a city like Mumbai where fathers like to pass on their businesses to their sons.
However, a civic health official felt that Mumbais problems arise from the fact that 60% of its population resides in slums and slum-like areas where sex-determination is rampant. It is a fact that urban slums have the worse child sex ratio. Mumbai is no different, the doctor said.
Another doctor, who didnt want to be identified, felt that sex-determination and selection will continue as long as there is a demand for it. Until people want it, some unscrupulous doctors will provide the service, he added.