The Hindu : `Male-female ratio in the country alarming'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Oct 21, 2003

National

National

`Male-female ratio in the country alarming'

By Our Special Correspondent

New Delhi Oct. 20. " `I am yours. Don't kill me,' is the silent plea of a girl-child for survival. If a woman going in for female foeticide could hear this cry of an unborn girl, she would change her mind. This message should be put up in the form of posters at sex-determination sonography clinics in every State that reports female foeticide," the Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Sushma Swaraj, said here today.

Her second suggestion was a message to men saying, "Kuware reh jaoge (You will remain unmarried)" if girl-foetuses are continued to be destroyed in the womb.

Ms. Swaraj was releasing a brochure "Missing" on Mapping the Adverse Child Sex Ratio in India. The brochure is a joint effort of the Registrar-General of India, the Department of Family Welfare and the United Nations Population Fund. "The soul-stirring cover showing a little innocent girl with just one word: `Missing' is the strongest message I have seen on a small brochure. When girls go missing in a society it shows that compassion is missing," she remarked.

The Minister announced the appointment of teenager Sanya Mirza who had won the Junior Wimbledon championship, as the brand Ambassador for the Government's `Save the Girl Child' campaign. Every year, a girl achiever would be the brand Ambassador for the campaign.

India has reported a child sex ratio of 927 girls to 1000 boys in the 2001 census, against a world average of 1045 women to 1000 men. In some States including Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, some districts of Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and recently Karnataka, the sex ratio has declined to about 900 girls per 1000 boys in the 0-6 age group. In some districts, the ratio has plummeted to less than about 850 to 1000 boys.

Sharing her concern and alarm at the missing girls, Ms. Swaraj said the desire for a son is the biggest impediment in the stabilisation of population. Law and monitoring alone could not have the desired impact unless the problem was tackled on many fronts and in a vigorous manner. The need is to stir the souls — through religious leaders, poets and artistes — of all those who are a party to this. She regretted that States such as Punjab and Haryana that deify little girls as goddesses and worship them on the eighth day (ashtami) of Navratri, were willing to kill them the following day on account of gender discrimination.

Earlier, making a power-point presentation of the state of the missing girls, the RGI, J.K. Banthia, said even the 1991 census had brought out that there was something wrong in the society as there was a deficit in women. "The 2001 census showed that this is spreading like cancer. A stage may soon come when it would be extremely difficult to make up for the missing girls,'' he said.

The UNFPA Representative in India, Francois Farah, said eliminating females just because they are females before or after birth was the ultimate manifestation of gender violence and discrimination, abuse of human rights and infringement on values of equity, equality, justice, dignity and quality of life for all.

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