Girl child still unwanted in Delhi

About 54% of the foetus, aborted in the national Capital and neighbouring Haryana, are of a girl child, reports Chetan Chauhan. See graphics...

Updated on: Aug 23, 2008, 01:21:25 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The much-repeated story of families killing a girl child to have a son the next time has a number now.

About 54 per cent of the foetus, aborted in the national Capital and neighbouring Haryana, were of a girl child.

The figures are alarming because Delhi and Haryana have the lowest sex ratio. Delhi has a ratio of 868 girls for every 1,000 boys and Haryana 820, while Punjab comes third with 793. The national figure is 925.

Shantha Sinha, chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, said, “The act of killing a girl child is barbaric. It shows we may look modern but our thinking is still medieval. I demand stronger punishment of those involved in female foeticide.”

The government should conduct social audits of all nursing homes and clinics in Delhi to find out the culprits, she added.

A National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development study, conducted in the lowest sex ratio districts of two states, revealed about 61 per cent of abortions in the two states were conducted in private clinics.

The study said most mothers claimed to have undergone abortions to limit the family size, or for birth spacing, or because of excessive bleeding. But mothers-in-law were more candid, admitting the desire for a son was the probable reason. In most cases, men took the decision to abort the foetus, the study said.

Sex determination of the foetus is either done in private clinics or by midwives using traditional methods. In 15 per cent cases, midwives themselves abort the child.

In most cases, midwives and health workers provided information to the families about abortion clinics. “This points to the fact that abortion services are freely available despite laws in place,” the socio-cultural study on declining sex ratio in two states finalised this week, said.

Surprisingly, seeking the help of midwives was found to be more common in Delhi than in Haryana.

What’s more, Delhi was found to be worse than Haryana when it comes to female foeticide. More abortions, either induced or spontaneous, were reported from Delhi.

The study, based on data collected in October 2007, showed the percentage of abortions increased to 30.8 per cent, 52.9 per cent and 66.7 per cent in second, third and fourth births, respectively, in Delhi, said Shantha Gopalakrishnan, who conducted the study over two years.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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