Where have all the girls gone?

According to the 2011 census in India, there is a serious decline in the number of female children under the age of seven. This is believed to be due to the practice foeticide. Since the 1970’s the tests became widely available to determine the sex of an unborn child and since then this practice of sex-determination has been used to selectively exterminate female children in the womb, even though the Pre-Natal Determination Test (PNDT) Act outlawed sex-selective abortion in 1994.

Still, there are 40,000 registered ultra-sound clinics in the country and hundreds more that are not registered. While the Delhi area clinics display mandatory signage that they “do not carry out illegal sex determination tests” the proof is in the numbers.

Why is this carnage being carried out in this modern era? The patrileneal attitude of the culture remains; men are the ones who carry on the family name and the family values. “There’s no happiness when a girl is born. They say the son will carry forward our lineage, but the daughter will get married and go off to another family.” In Delhi, though the practice of dowries was outlawed in the 1960’s this practice remains rampant. It affects families from every socioeconomic status. These ideologies have encouraged the decline in females over the years, from 976 girls to every 1000 boys under seven years old in 1961, to the sad statistic of 914 girls to every 1000 boys under seven in 2011. Practices such as sex-determined abortions, neglect of female children, and abuse have contributed to these declining numbers.

Some government officials have publically decried these practices. When the census report was released Home Secretary GK Pillai stated “Whatever measures have been put in over the past 40 years have not had any impact on the child sex ratio,” and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described the practice of female foeticide and infanticide as a “national shame”. Still, the problem is a real one. “What is needed is a strict implementation of the law,” says Varsha Joshi, director of census operations for Delhi.

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