declining sex ratio in rajasthan
TRANSCRIPT
A
REPORT
ON
“Study on the Declining of the Sex Ratio in India and
Especially In Rajasthan”
By
GAURAV TYAGI 2007D2TS856
BIRLA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY & SCIENCE
PILANI, RAJASTHAN-
1
REPORT
ON
“Study on the Declining of the Sex Ratio in India and
Especially In Rajasthan”
By
GAURAV TYAGI 2007D2TS856
Prepared in partial fulfilment of the course
Study Oriented Project
Under the supervision
Of
Professor S. Nadeem Fatmi
BIRLA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY & SCIENCE
PILANI, RAJASTHAN-333031
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I acknowledge my deep sense of gratitude to Dr. L.K. Maheshwari, Vice-Chancellor, Birla
Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani for his continuous encouragement and for the
provision of the required infrastructure.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Professor S. Nadeem Fatmi, LHSA, BITS-
Pilani for providing me with the opportunity to work with him, for providing a wonderful
working environment, for his continuous guidance, help and encouragement and all the
support provided thereafter. I thank him for his enormous patience in answering my
numerous questions, for constant support and help right from the beginning, for encouraging
me to strive for perfection in every field and for the invaluable help and suggestions, right
from the beginning. Their ability to lighten the atmosphere during the time of stress was
invaluable.
I also express my deep gratitude to the people of the villages for their co-operation and
support during our survey time.
Gaurav Tyagi
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ABSTRACT
Explanations for the different comparative values of sons and daughters have focused on
economic and cultural factors including the type of agriculture, kinship systems, customs
concerning the linkages between parents and offspring after marriage and socio-economic
activity. For girls of India mostly in Rajasthan, west-central UP and the surrounding districts
as revealed by the sex ratio map of the recent Census. This report examines the hypothesis
that families in India especially in Rajasthan want (or need) more sons than daughters and
what are the other ways so that sex ratio should be maintained in the state.
This project also provided the details of the conditions and thinking of people about the declining sex ratio in the following villages of jhunjhunu district of Rajasthan.
Jherli Village
Raila Village
Bishanpura Village
The survey conducted in these villages discusses in details the analysis of data on three grounds i.e.
Condition of female
Thinking of people
Measures to improve
After this Survey, the details were compiled along with relevant secondary data and other details and an evaluation report is prepared. This report is the basis of the detailed study. There are various shocking and interesting facts that came out from this survey. All the points are discussed in depth.
At the end, there are certain facts and then Recommendations/Suggestions are given to improve the sex ratio.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Cover Page
Title Page
Acknowledgements
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Declining Sex Ratio: An introduction
3. Overview: Declining Sex ratio in India
3.1 Child Sex Ratio in India
3.2 Sex ratio and Child sex ratio for major states in India
3.3 Sex ratios by Social Groups -2001
4. Background of the problem
4.1 The son-preference trend in Northern India
4.2 Disaffection for daughters
4.3 Dowry System
5 Sex Ratio in Rajasthan
6 Causes of the problem
6.1 Sex Selective Abortion
6.1.1 Infanticide
6.1.2 Example (Change of Heart)
6.1.3 Discrimination and Neglect
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7. Conclusion and Recommendations
8. Field work / Data Analysis
8.1. Section I (Villagers Perception)
8.2. Section II (Hospital Perception)
8.3. Conclusion and Recommendations for the Villages
10. Bibliography
11. References
12. Annexure- I
13. Annexure-II
1. Introduction
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This project on “Studying the Declining of Sex Ratio of India especially in Rajasthan” is
aimed at studying various aspects related to Sex Ratio.
In a normal world, the female population equals or slightly surpasses the number of males.
Except in India, that is, where the situation is just the opposite, where the gender ratio or the
number of females to males is known to be among the most imbalanced in the world.
Although China has the most severe shortage of girls compared to boys of any country in the
world today, in India, the 2001 census revealed disturbing news: the proportion of girls aged
0-6 years dropped from 945:1000 to 927:1000 since the previous census done 10 years
earlier. This means that 35 million fewer females than males were registered in India over
this particular decade. The census also revealed that the phenomenon has reached high
proportions in states which had no prior history or practice of female infanticide, or where
forms of discrimination against girls were not strongly evident earlier.
This report is divided in to certain sections. Which are dealing with various aspects related
with the Sex Ratio. Like it initially tries to observe the Sex ratio, the first section focuses on
the recent demographic trends observed in India. I examined the evolution of the sex ratio
over the last decades, and the variations observed within the country.
The Case study aspect of the report clearly provided the data related to the sex ratio of
Rajasthan. The survey to villages like Bishanpura, Pathadia, Jherli, Mandrella and Raila
provides us a clear picture of the life and living conditions of the people in these parts.
The source of data collection mainly revolves around the national reports on Demographic
census like that of the National Commissions Annual Reports and other national journals
Data is also collected directly from the village sarpanchs and members by the means of
questionnaire distribution.
The scope of this project is very wide, as it provides details of the problem of declining sex
ratio and its effect on people of Rajasthan. This project also proves of immense value to those
who want to know the problem of declining sex ratio in India and its solution.
2. Declining Sex Ratio: An introduction
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First, rising sex ratios in India have been recorded since the early 1980s, and have since
continued increasing with no sign, so far, of reversing course. The impact of this early rise is
already visible among the adult population of several Indian districts. Second, even if sex-
ratio values in India are still beneath those of China, its potential contribution to the overall
“masculinization” of Asia (and, consequently, of the world’s population) is particularly
formidable in view of India’s demographic weight. The prospect of further worsening of
India’s sex composition requires close monitoring of current sex-ratio trends in the country.
Lastly, the Indian scenario of female discrimination is extremely complex in view of India’s
social and economic diversity: the interplay of cultural and economic factors, along with the
impact of policy initiatives, has produced a heterogeneous situation; in turn, this complexity
offers ways to better understand the mechanisms at work, and to inform the policy debate on
the struggle against gender discrimination. In India today the men to women ratio is rapidly
declining. The road that lies ahead is a vast barren desert, and our country is poised to plunge
into social disaster.
Usually when something is in short supply, it’s value rises and people scramble to either
hoard it, steal it, swipe it, buy it at a premium, or at best, share it with loved ones. As in some
places in India, women are seen as ‘goods’, not people, they suffer the same fate. When in
short supply, they are kidnapped, bought at a premium or shared with friends and relatives.
Some men have no means to buy and if they have the criminal mentality, they will resort to
crime.
On the other hand see what happens when people are in short supply, as in lets say
experienced computer engineers. Their value goes up and as a result, and they are wined and
dined, lured and cajoled, sucked up to and put on a pedestal.
The Constitution of India guarantees equality to women. It empowers the states to adopt
measures for affirmative discrimination in favour of women and also impose a fundamental
duty on its citizens to uphold the dignity of women but despite all this, India's deep rooted
"sons only" ethos continues and girls and women face inequity and inequality everywhere.
They are devalued as human beings from the day they are born. But what is worse is that they
are even denied the right to be born, if their families do not wish them to be born.
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New developments in medical technology have helped to improve health care for millions of
people. One cheap and widely available test can determine the sex of the child. There is gross
misuse of reproductive technology in a society characterized by a strong bias against a female
child. The census report of 2001 presents a grim reality indicating an imbalance in the ratio of
female and male. It is a common fact that the sex ratio in India is lower than international
standards i.e. sex ratio in India is 933 while the world average is 986. The decline is massive
after 1980s. The survey reports express it very well.
Human population exhibits definitive characteristics in terms of its sex composition. In most
parts of the globe fewer females are born, yet females, as compared to their male
counterparts, typically survive longer to exceed the males numerically at any given point of
time. However, this demographic attribute eludes India where males decisively out-number
the females and women constitute less than half of the total population. Sex ratio is a direct
indicator of women’s status and welfare. The sex ratio changes are usually analysed in a
framework that underlies (relatively) greater deprivation and discrimination of females, as
opposed to males, in the south Asian cultural set-up. The major determinants, of numerical
imbalances, revolve around factors such as under enumeration of women, fertility, mortality
and migration. Under-enumeration of females, relative to their male counter parts, typically
encountered in south Asia due to lower status of women, also makes census sex composition
more masculine. Though such enumeration bias is relatively greater at certain ages such as
early childhood and widowhood, rather being artificial than real, it does not depict the grim
reality and warrants interventions that can generate better awareness about the need for
accurate age reporting as well as recording.
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3. Overview: Declining Sex ratio in India
India is one of the few countries in the world where males outnumber females. The sex ratio
of Indian population in the century has shown a secular-declining trend except some marginal
increases in the censuses of 1951, 1981 and 2001. The net deficit of females, which was 3.2
million in 1901 has now widened to over 35 million in 2001.
The sex ratio in 2001 was 933, six points higher than the sex ratio of 927 recorded in 1991.In
1971 It was Visalia’s pioneering study of "sex ratios of the population of India" (which
convincingly established the fact that the low female-male ratio (FMR) is mainly due to the
sex differentials in mortality. He argued that the contributions of migration, under numeration
of females and sex ratios at birth are having only a marginal influence. The socio-cultural
discrimination against female children is the main reason for female mortality. This is also
"extended infanticide" where life-sustaining inputs like food, nutrition, health care were
denied to girl child.
There is a great deal of evidence of girls being given less food and health care than boys,
especially in north India. Girls are breast fed for shorter periods, they are taken to fewer
medical consultations, and often very late, or not at all, to hospitals changes in sex ratio
largely reflect the underlying socio-economic and cultural patterns of a society in different
ways. It is an important social indicator to measure the prevailing equity between males and
females in a society at a given point of time. There have been discussions concerning the
issue of female deficit ever since the first census of British India in 1872. In fact, one scholar
considers the female deficit of about 5 million and speculates the reasons present the sex ratio
of India from 1871 to 2001.
The sex ratio rose from 954 in 1881 to 963 in 1901 and there was decline during the next four
censuses. In the beginning, it was considered that under Enumeration of females was the
main reason for the unfavourable ex-ratio for women. However, in later years, the vital
statistics showed that in India, males outnumber females at birth. As per the census figures of
1921 to 1951 across different geographical zones, the sex ratio is very low particularly in
North- west India. In 1921, the sex ratio at all India level was 956, but in the Northwest zone
it was 853, though there was some marginal improvement in the subsequent censuses.
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This table shows the scenario of sex ratio from 1871 to 2001
3.1 Child Sex Ratio in India
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The sex ratio and child sex ratio for India and major states for the years 1991 and 2001.
Though there is a marginal increase in the general sex ratio, it continues to be significantly
adverse to women. The sex ratio of 933 has to be seen from two perspectives. On the positive
side, this sex ratio shows a marginal improvement of six points from the sex ratio of 1991.
However, as a long-term trend over the past 100 years, the sex ratio has shown alarming
decline. There is significant reduction in child sex ratio (0-6 years) from 945 to 927 at the
national level during 1991 to 2001.
The decline is not only in 2001 but it is disturbingly high and continuous since 196. But the
state level figures provide a more disturbing picture in the decline of juvenile sex ratio. There
is hardly any state, which has child sex ratio of thousand or more. There were nineteen States/
Union territories recording child sex ratio in the range 959-999 at the 1991 Census and this
number is now reduced to eight.
The child sex ratio has registered fourteen points decline in the rural areas at the national
level while this decline is thirty-two points in the urban areas. The most disturbing aspect is
the decline in the rural areas of twenty-six States and Union territories at the 2001 Census.
This decline has been very steep (eighty-two points) in Punjab followed by Chandigarh,
Haryana and Uttaranchal, all in the northern part of Rajasthan region. Kerala is the only state
recorded a favourable sex ratio for females. In fact, from 1036 in 1991 it went up to 1058 in
2001.
However, similar improvement is not reported with regard to child sex ratio. Although there
was a marginal increase in general sex ratio at the national level in 1981 and 2001, the child
sex ratio continued to decline over the last five decades (976 in 1961 to 927 in 2001).
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This graph shows sex ratio of the child and overall population, India, 1951-2001
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3.2 Sex ratio and Child sex ratio for major states in India
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3.3 Sex ratios by Social Groups -2001
The decline in child sex ratio in the urban areas of the country is more than two times the
decline seen in the rural areas. As per 1991 census the sex ratio among Hindus is 925 and for
Muslims, it is 930. A marked difference in the sex ratios of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribes is noticeable. At the national level the sex ratio among Scheduled Caste is 922
whereas for tribal population it is little better.
The decline in the child sex ratio in thirty-two states/union territories in their urban areas and
in twenty-nine states and union territories in the rural areas speaks about the pathetic status
and low desirability of girl child in Indian society.
This decline has been coupled with more than fifty points decline in five states/ union
territories in their rural areas, and in eight states and union territories in the urban areas
including Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Delhi , Chandigarh and Rajasthan
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4. The Background of the problem
Atrocities against women in various forms have been an integral part of the civilization since
ages. However, India has unabashedly been home to some of the most barbaric acts against
this ‘gentler’ breed of humanity, starting from dowry deaths and sati, going up to female
infanticide and female feticide.
Technology facilitates a series of pre-natal diagnostic tools to identify and cure any potential
birth defects and associated conditions. In a gross misuse of the scientific tools, female
fetuses are selectively aborted after such pre-natal sex determination, in spite of a massive
influx of legal regulations banning the same.
Techniques such as Amniocentesis were introduced in 1975 to identify any genetic
abnormalities. Sadly, these soon became a tool for sex determination and proved to be a call
of death for the tiny unborn female fetuses.
What is most alarming is that the CSR is far more skewed in the ‘Bermuda Triangle’, which
includes the land-rich and affluent states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. The national
capital, New Delhi, is also known to be on top of the list.
As per the latest government data available pertaining to births, the CSR in Punjab stood at a
mere 775 females per 1000 males. Shockingly, a recent survey of 10 villages around
Chandigarh (that fall within 29 km radius of the city), revealed that the number of boys
outnumbered girls in every village.
Reports indicate that more than 12,000 sex determination tests were carried out across the
scores of private clinics in 1997 in Delhi alone. In fact, the steep rise in sex crimes in Delhi
has also been attributed to the unequal sex ratio. In the same year, 105 female infants had
been reportedly killed every month in Dharmapuri district of Tamil Nadu.
The apathetic attitude of the administration coupled with inefficient legislative
implementation further adds to the woes of the girl child in India, facing elimination and
discrimination in their very right to live.
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4.1 The son-preference trend in Northern India
So far, in Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan, the researchers have looked at
changes in education, employment, nutrition, work patterns, religion, and culture, as well as
family concerns such as marriage, property, inheritance, and continuity.
The chosen field sites varied in terms of economic status, with Himachal Pradesh being by far
the most prosperous. In comparison, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan are less well off, with
greater dependence on agriculture and lower levels of education and health care. Because
morbidity levels are higher there, the researchers noted that adverse sex ratios could not be
attributed to sex-selective abortions alone. Conclusive data analysis for Punjab and Haryana
has not yet been completed.
What the researchers can state is that sex ratios varied in villages and urban wards,
underscoring that local contexts were significant. Son-preference was noted as being equally
strong among different income groups and there was no significant correlation between caste
and sex ratios where earlier research showed that sex ratios were better among lower castes
and among the poor.
Just as for son preference, it was assumed that female infanticide along with other threats to
the survival, growth and development of daughters would also disappear with increasing
economic and social welfare, lower and controlled fertility, improvement in income levels,
nutritional levels, health care and female education. Overall physical well-being and
education of both male and female children may have improved with increasing economic
welfare and declining fertility. Yet recent studies of female infanticide, new biases in sex
ratios at birth and infant and child mortality rates indicate that extreme forms of daughter
discrimination resulting in death have persisted.
Anthropologists and demographers have argued that both infanticide and selective infant and
child mortality are means by which parents traditionally attempted to determine or manage
the sex composition of their families.
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4.2 Disaffection for daughters
The findings confirmed norms that have been part of India’s socio-economic fabric for
centuries. Sons are considered pivotal to family welfare, as they are the ones who earn
money, continue family lineage, and provide a form of old age security for parents. A
daughter, meanwhile, is considered to be a “double loss” as she not only leaves her family
when she marries, becoming an “asset” to her new family, but she is also a source of
marriage expenses, including the payment of dowry to the groom’s family.
In both rural and urban Morena, Madhya Pradesh, residents keenly agreed with one
respondent’s comment that “from the moment a daughter is born, the paramount concern of
the immediate family is to accumulate money, valuables, and goods for her wedding.” Today,
dowry is a practice found among almost all castes, with the reported exception of some tribal
groups.
A Dhobi (lower caste) mother said, “Dowry is like a penalty… it’s for the girl’s security/
prosperity, but whether she remains happy or not is decided by her destiny”
She and others added that while parents fret about post-marriage security and their girls’
happiness, they would resist them returning home after an unsuccessful marriage. The social
evils like Dowry and other are the main reason for the disaffection for daughters. In rural
areas, there may be a compromise in the duration of schooling. It is noted that girls are
encouraged to complete as much education as they can but if a ‘good match’ is found, the
girl is married off before she completes her studies.
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4.3 Dowry System
Traditionally, the custom of Dowry, long entrenched in male dominated society has attained
alarming proportions over the last few decades. “Dowry can be seen as a type of pre-mortem
inheritance to the bride”. Thambiah defines Dowry as “Wealth given to a daughter at her
marriage for the couple to use as the nucleus of their conjugal estate, by and large we can say
that dowry in India and Ceylon (Srilanka) the notion of female property (Streedhanam) which
technically is her property and in her own control though the husband usually has rights of
management”.
Dowry normally means gifts given during the marriage to the son–in –law or his parents
either in cash or kind. From the point of view of women’s status, however, dowry has to be
looked at as constituting what is given to the bride, and is often settled before hand and
announced openly or discreetly. The gift, though given to the bride may not be regarded as
exclusively her property, but includes what is given to the bridegroom before and after
marriage; and what is presented to the in-laws of the girl. The practice of giving dowry was
meant to assist a newlywed couple to start their life together with ease. However, now it has
degenerated into a sordid commercial transaction in which monetary considerations receive
priority over the personal merits of the bride. The Dowry system has always given rise to
innumerable socio-economic problems of far reaching consequences and wide ranging
ramifications. Of late, numerous incidents of bride burning, harassment and physical torture
of the young brides and various kinds of pressure tactics being adopted by the husbands /in-
laws pressurizing for more dowry have compelled the social reformers and the intelligentsia to
give serious thought to the various aspects connected with the very institution of dowry .
Legislation by itself cannot normally solve deep-rooted social problems. Nonetheless,
legislation is necessary to exercise educative impact besides providing legal sanctions against
this social evil of devastating consequences.
To understand the origin of this practice, one must take a deeper look into the Hindu Society
and the inherent Law. In Hindu Society, people lived in joint families. Men marry and their
brides come to live in the houses of their husbands. The family members practiced the
profession of their choice or even carried out businesses together. The profits of the same
were distributed equitably among the members of the family.
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However, there was only one problem: When the daughters got married, they went on to live
with their respective husbands, thus making it difficult to divide the property equitably
among its members and also avoid the disintegration of the joint family at the same time. If
the daughter got her rightful share in her family property and also went on to live with her
husband in his house, then she or her husband would be able to control and even interfere in
this family's affairs. One should also note that they would hold rights in two family properties
which could cause many problems due to conflict of interests and disputes on how the
property is handled or dealt which may be compared to the ones faced by business houses
even to this very day. This is one of the reasons why according to the Hindu Law women did
not have a right to the family property until a few decades ago. However, this does not mean
that the daughter did not have any rightful share. She was given her rightful share in the
property at the time of her marriage, which eventually came to be known as "dowry."
It is in this context that while the Dowry Prohibition Act was enacted in 1961, the Dowry
prohibition (Amendment) Act, 1984 was passed to further plug some of the loopholes in the
original Act. It came in to force 2nd October, 1985, requiring that lists shall be maintained in
writing and shall contain a brief description of each present, its approximate value, the name
of the person who has given the present, and whether the person giving the present is related
to the bride or bridegroom a description of such relationship, and shall be signed by both the
bride and the bridegroom.
The Dowry 'give and take' phenomenon is practiced widely throughout India irrespective of
caste and class. In spite of the legal sanctions women have been victims of Dowry harassment
and victims of violence due to insufficient dowry given by the bride’s family to the groom’s
family. In India an average of five women a day are burned in dowry related disputes and
many cases are never reported. This can be attributed to an internalization of prevailing
attitudes, which view women as inferior and see them as having only themselves to blame for
their predicament. It seldom sees them as victims a form of oppression or of socially
prevalent sex biases.
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5. Sex Ratio in Rajasthan
Located in northwest India, Rajasthan borders Punjab in the north, Haryana and Uttar
Pradesh in the northeast, Madhya Pradesh in the east and Gujarat in the south. On the western
side, it shares a long stretch of border with the neighbouring country Pakistan. Situated on the
Thar Desert, Rajasthan protects the western border of the country standing as the sentinel
who never tires. The state of Rajasthan has an area of 342,239 sq. km. and a population of
56.51 million.
There are 32 districts, 237 blocks and 41353 villages. The State has population density of 165
per sq. km. (as against the national average of 324). The decadal growth rate of the state is
28.41% (against 21.54% for the country) and the population of the state continues to grow at
a much faster rate than the national rate. The Total Fertility Rate of the State is 3.7. The
Infant Mortality Rate is 67 and Maternal Mortality Ratio is 445 (SRS 2001 - 03) which are
higher than the National average. The Sex Ratio in the State is 921 (as compared to 933 for
the country).
Half of women and 60% of men consider the ideal family size to be two children or less.
There is a strong preference for sons in Rajasthan. About one- third of women and one-
quarter of men wants more sons than daughters, but only negligible parents want more
daughters than sons. However, most men and women would like to have at least one son and
at least one daughter.
In Rajasthan the sex ratio is declining rapidly there are three districts which have shown a
drastic decrease in the sex ratio. These districts with the drastic change are Ganganagar,
Alwar, Jhunjhunu,. In Ganganagar decreased sex ratio is 42, in Alwar decreased sex ratio is
26, in Jhunjhunu decreased sex ratio is 33. For my case study in this report I have consider
the Jhunjhunu district.
The district is situated in the North-Eastern part of the State. It is surrounded by Churu on the
North-Western side, Hissar and Mahendragarh of Haryana in the North-Eastern part and by
Sikar in the West, South and South Eastern Part. The district is divided into three
administrative sub-division. These are Jhunjhunu, Khetri, and Nawalgarh. The district has
five tehsils. These are Jhunjhunu, Chirawa, Khetri, Nawalgarh, and Udaipurwati.
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There are eight panchayat samities. These are, Jhunjhunun, Alsisar, Chirawa, Suratgarh,
Khetri, Buhana, Nawalgarh, and Udaipurwati. According to 2001 census of India, the total
geographical area of the district is 5,928 square kilometers (1.73 per cent of the State). .The
total population Jhunjhunu district is 19, 13,099. The Sex ratio of the district is 946 females
per 1000 males whereas the sex ratio is 867.The total literacy rate of district is 73.6%.
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6. Causes of the problem
6.1 Sex Selective Abortion
In India, the medical termination of pregnancy (MTP) act was enacted in 1971 as a health
measure to protect women. The revised MTP Act of 1975 allows medical termination of
pregnancy (abortion) for any of the reasons such as
a) The pregnant woman has a serious medical disease or condition that would endanger
her life if the pregnancy were to continue;
b) Continuation of pregnancy would entail a substantial risk of physical and mental
handicap to the newborn child;
c) The pregnancy resulted from rape;
d) The socioeconomic circumstances of the mother would endanger the
health of the newborn child; and
e) The pregnancy occurred because of failure of a contraceptive method.
The last reason legalizes abortion on demand, in effect. Despite legalization of abortion, more
illegal abortions are being performed in India than legal ones. While government statistics
estimate legal abortions at about 0.6 million annually, illegal abortions are estimated to be 8
to 11 times as high as legal abortions Birth histories collected during India's National Family
Health Surveys show an unusually large proportion of male births in some population groups,
which suggest that female foetuses are being aborted. Sex selective abortion is a two step
process involving determination of the sex of the foetus followed by abortion if the foetus is
not the desired sex. Three methods are commonly used in India to determine the sex of a
fetus; amniocentesis, chorionic villus sampling, and ultrasound. During the last two decades,
prenatal diagnosis technologies have proliferated rapidly in India, primarily used to avoid the
birth of daughters, As there exists a strong preference for sons.
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Couples who have achieved their desired family size may not stop having children if they
have not reached their desired number of sons. Soon after the introduction of the sex-
determination tests, advertisements began to spread both in urban and rural areas by private
practitioners motivated by high profit margin in providing abortion services.
These attractive advertisements were specifically addressing prospective parents to abort
female foetuses in order to avoid future dowry expenses. Daughters are considered as a
'liability' for the family by these advertisements and in a way they exhort women to avail
themselves of the services of the clinic to escape the future financial burdens arising from
getting the daughter married.
Misuse of sex determination tests has been a subject of media attention for many years.
Health activists and women's organizations voiced their concern forcing the government to
act. In 1994, Government of India banned the tests at national level, with the Prenatal
Diagnostic Techniques (PNDT) (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act. As per this new
legislation, only government- registered clinics and laboratories may employ prenatal
diagnostic procedures that could be used to assess the sex of the foetus. The new Act also
specifies that no prenatal diagnostic procedures may be used unless there is a heightened
possibility that the foetus suffers from a harmful condition or genetic disease. It also states,
"no person conducting prenatal diagnostic procedures shall communicate to the pregnant
women concerned or her relatives the sex of the foetus by words, signs, or in any other
manner".
This Act was again amended in the light of the newer techniques of pre-conception tests and
the amended rule has come into effect from February, 2003. Now the Act is renamed as the
Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex-selection) Act, 1994.
Even after all these restrictions and campaign against this practice, the business of sex
determination thrived in all parts of the country. "This perverse use of technology is
encouraged and boosted by money minded practitioners who are out to make Indian women
"male producing machines" Some of them even went to the extent of arguing that the parents
have the right to ensure the "quality of their offspring", indirectly meaning the presence of
male children.
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In 1993, a BBC documentary highlighted the way in which greedy doctors misused the
technology by offering "services" at the customer's doorstep by driving around with a
portable ultrasound machine in their car. Ultrasound is considered by many couples to be a
good investment in order to save many times that sum in future dowry payments if the fetus is
a female. The prenatal diagnosis technologies were misused which intensified the oppression
of women particularly in cultural settings such as in India where women already have a low
status Female foetuses are liable to victimization on the basis of their sex alone even before
they are born. Only far reaching social changes that aim at increasing female autonomy,
female economic power and the value of the girl child are likely to make a significant impact
on the demand for sex-selective abortion. Interestingly, there is no reliable statistics available
on sex selective abortion at the state or national level in India. An indirect estimate using the
data from two rounds of National Family Health Survey indicates more than 100,000 sex
selective abortions in India every year The evidence of substantial sex-selective abortion in
states such as Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and Maharashtra is consistent with the high rates of use
of ultrasound and amniocentesis Using the data from the National Family Health Survey of
India Evidence provided on the widespread use of ultrasound for sex-selective abortions in
India, and for particular states.
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6.1.1 Infanticide
It is well documented that infanticide in India was prevalent among certain communities
during the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century. The castes that practiced female
infanticide in the 19th century included the Rajput, Jats, Ahirs, Gujjars and Khutris. The
British first discovered the practice of female infanticide in 1789. The British Resident at
Baroda, in March 1808, reported that annually 20,000 girls were killed mercilessly in Jadeja
Rajput households. The 27 reasons cited for this practice was avoidance of financial stress
and humiliation. It was found that there were no daughters in a village in eastern Uttar Pradesh
(Panigrahi, 1972). In the household of the Rana of Porbander there had been no grown up
daughters for more than 100 years. It was also reported that in the whole of Kathiawad there
were only 63 female children alive aged between 1-15 years, amidst Jadeja Rajput. The 1872
census of Kaira district has shown that the peasant caste of Lewa Patidars had only 39 to 53
girls to 100 boys.
The low proportion of females in this community was confirmed in successive census returns
of 1891, 1901 and 1911. It was a practice among the Rajkumar Rajput of Jaunpur to destroy
their daughters by not allowing mother's to nurture the child. The common reason cited for
this inhuman practice was the difficulty to find a suitable groom for their daughters before the
age of puberty and the disgrace that was attached to the failure of the family in this respect.
The British census superintendents were concerned with the low sex ratio and female
infanticide in certain parts of the country and among some castes, clans and tribes. The
British government passed an Act in 1870 banning the horrible practice of female infanticide
in the United Province of Agra and Oudh, which was later extended to Punjab Province and
Rajputana Agency. The Census Commissioner of India for the 1911 census documents;
“Hyper gamy, or the rule that a girl must be given in marriage to a man of higher rank, makes
it very difficult and very expensive to obtain a suitable husband, while the admission of
inferiority which is implied in giving a girl in marriage is a blow to a man's pride. Apart from
this, a Rajput husband often tyrannizes his father-in-law. Female infanticide was resorted to in
order to avoid these troubles which the marriage of a daughter involved". 1911 census also
states that certain communities suspected of practicing female infanticide were placed under
police surveillance. The 1921 census classified castes in major regions of north India into two
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groups: those that practiced female infanticide and hence showed fewer females and those
that did not and hence showed a higher proportion of females. The Census Commissioner of
Gwalior wrote "It is very striking that Tonwarghar (presently known as Morena district), the
habitat of Tonwar Thakurs, should show as in 1901 and 1911 the lowest proportion of
females to males. Tonwar Thakurs, of all castes and races, show the smallest ratio of 526
females in the whole state". Though the existence of female infanticide in Gwalior was not
openly stated in the census report of 1931, it would be illogical to attribute the lowest sex
ratio to the hereditary incapacity of people to produce female children. The sex ratio among
the Kachhwaha Rajput was 712, it was 745 among Kayasthas and 776 among Brahmins in
1931. While historically reviewing the prevalence of female infanticide, Premi and Raju
(1998) identify two reasons. Firstly the incidences of hurting Rajput pride because of their
daughters led to a collective decision to destroy all their daughters as soon as they were born.
Secondly, the prevailing custom of a woman having to spend the night in a Muslim
household after her marriage, brought shame to Raj puts. Though infanticide had been
practiced in various parts of the world,
We have very little dependable primary data on this subject. Female infanticide was quite
common in pre-communist China, though it has now been replaced by feticide. Other than
census reports, many studies also confirm the prevalence of this practice as early as 1800 in
many parts of India. It is quite evident that female infanticide was not universally practiced in
India and even in those areas where it was reported, not all communities were involved in it.
Though it was not very common, the female infanticide was prevalent in South India also. The
great writer refers to this practice being prevalent among the Kallar community in the 19th
century. Since the dowry was not that virulent in the south, fewer castes felt it necessary to
get rid of their daughters. However, this practice was reported from other communities also
from various parts of Tamil Nadu during the last two decades, this barbaric crime is generally
carried out by dais Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) in rural areas and by compounders
and nurses with the knowledge of doctors in urban areas. The certain caste groups in selected
pockets of Madhya Pradesh still resort to female infanticide. The factors responsible are high
cost of dowry due to the prevailing custom of hyper gamy and upholding of Rajput pride.
In southern states, it was observed that the most commonly used methods for killing infants
include "poisoning by the latex of the caltrops plant, organophosphate poisoning (pesticide),
sedative overdose, strangulation, neglect (starving the baby to death, which does not leave
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any forensic evidence), feeding the child paddy grain soaked in milk or juice extracted from
tobacco leaves. Asphyxiation by swaddling the baby in a wet cloth is also practiced"
Change of Heart
Mani ram has spent good amount of money to marry off the first of his two daughters by his first
wife, Saroj. His second wife, Shanti whom he married after Saroj died, gave birth to a girl, after
having borne a son. Mani put pressure on Shanti to get rid of the newborn, but she was not so easily
persuaded. Despite pressure from her husband and in-laws, she held out with support from her
mother. Thanks to her determination, the baby born on 30 April survived the night.
The following day, the block team of the villages came to the particular panchayat, where Shanti and
Mani lived. Around 11 a.m., the couple watched the troupe perform in front of their house. They were
moved by the songs and skits opposing female infanticide and highlighting the positive role of
daughters in taking care of aged parents. Latter in the day, the panchayat president told Ramlal, the
block team manager and Munian, the area literacy coordinator that, after seeing the performance,
Shanti had decided to keep her girl baby despite pressure mounted by her in-laws. Her husband, Mani
ram, was no longer opposing her decision to keep the child. The campaign thus played a crucial role
in the lives of this couple, who were landless agricultural labourers.
♦ Manickam has two daughters and a son by his first wife who died a few years ago. His elder
daughter, Kuppu, was married by paying a dowry of Rs. 30,000 and four sovereigns of gold. He also
has a four-year-old daughter, Latha, by his second wife, Palaniammal. When Latha's mother gave
birth to another daughter at her natal home in a nearby village, Manickam made a sinister plan. He
took Latha on his bicycle from his village to Palaniammal's maternal home, where she and the
newborn were staying. He gave Latha a bottle of the pesticide, Folidol, and instructed her to inform
her mother that the newborn should be given the "medicine" in the bottle. Fortunately for the
newborn, Palaniammal was unwilling to oblige Manickam. Around this time, Palaniammal's father
and sister saw the Kalaipayanam. They came home convinced that the baby must be allowed to live.
They assured Palaniammal of their support and this strengthened her resolve. She kept the baby even
though she was uncertain of whether Manickam would take her and the baby back. She raised the
issue with the health campaign leadership. The panchayat's intervention was then sought, and
Manickam has since agreed to take Palaniammal and the baby girl.
* This and all the other names have been changed.
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Source: Social
6.1.2 Discrimination and Neglect
The underlying workings of female discrimination are undoubtedly highly complex.
However, a number of broad factors have been identified which together create a situation
where sons are preferred and daughters suffer discrimination and neglect.
The patterns of inheritance are typically patrilineal in India with property passing from father
to son. Upon marriage the bride leaves her natal home to live with the family of her husband.
In this exogamous lineage system women are left out. They become dispensable essentially
because they count for very little as individuals. (Das Gupta et al, forthcoming) There is a
double loss of a daughter leaving the family together with the fact that the benefits from
investments made in a daughter’s upbringing will accrue to the new family. In other words,
even though a woman’s status might improve, it does not change the nature of the social
order as it does not directly correlate to a change in her position within it. While valuing adult
women’s contributions to the household, the system generates strong disincentives to raising
daughters. A common explanation for the existence of son preference and daughter
discrimination is that sons can provide old age support. In India, the majority of the old live
with married children who to an overwhelming degree are sons. In the Indian context,
characterized by high levels of uncertainty, where no institutional alternative to the family as a
source of social insurance has emerged, parental decisions are likely to be powerfully
motivated by their concerns about their own security in old age. The existence of such an
understanding and commitment between parents and children, commonly called an inter-
generational contract, is one of the factors which appears to have remained unchanged through
the overall social and economic changes. Sons are also important because they alone may
perform the funeral rituals of the parents. Another factor leading to strong disincentives and
discrimination against daughters is the existence of the dowry system, which, together with
marriage costs is a major drain on household resources. Since there is a great ritual
importance of daughter. There are exceptions to this with both matrilineal and bilateral
inheritance.
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A first daughter is accepted positively but with an anticipation of the burden of future
marriage costs. The discrimination against girl children is thus, not general but selective with
higher discrimination of higher birth order daughters. Coupled with exogamy, increasing
expenses on daughters become a net drain on household resources. Thus, women have limited
or no possibilities to contribute to their parents’ welfare. This creates an apparent dichotomy
between the value of a girl to her parents and that of a woman to her in-laws.
It has also become more costly to raise children as education has become more important.
The desire for smaller families has in turn reduced the number of children available for parent
care in old age. Parents feel more vulnerable due to greater educational, social and
geographical mobility of the younger generation as it threatens the future flow of resources to
the older generation. This suggests how socio-economic changes may have strained the
conditions for an inter-generational contract, making the disincentives against raising
daughters even stronger. Within the family there appear to be two main factors causing
daughters to be the first to be sacrificed; a gender dimension and a generational dimension.
The intergenerational contract works to counter shifting dependency situations between
generations as a way of insuring against vulnerability. In so doing, it also creates an
hierarchical structure of the family based on resource flows. In other words, there is a gender
hierarchy as well as a generational hierarchy and in both of them daughters come last13. An
expression of this is how a woman’s bargaining position within the household increases with
the birth of a son.
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7. Conclusion and Recommendations
The declines in overall sex ratio in general and child sex ratio in particular are not without
consequences. The fact that distortions in sex ratio, unless it is of a substantial magnitude, or
is very pervasive and continuous for a fairly lengthy period, usually takes long to appear
significantly in the social landscape and arrest attention. While the awareness of how social
structures are adverse to girls and women is high, the awareness of how to change appears to
be low.
. Before delineating the effects of sex ratio declines in the selected states, one may keep in
mind that many of these, covering social, economic, cultural, demographic and ethical
domains are speculative, with little empirical as well as research support. One of the many
immediate consequences of sex ratio imbalances is the ‘marriage squeeze’ characterized by
inability of men in marriageable age to find suitable partners. Marriage is universal in India
and men typically marry younger women with age gap normally not exceeding five years. If
the already secularly declining child sex ratio plummets further, there is a probability that
each successive cohort will contain lesser and lesser women relative to men. As (in and out)
migration do not substantially alter the cohort sex composition, it is likely that more men
compete for comparatively lesser number of women in the marriage market.
However, it is simplistic to assume that the demographic factor alone influence the ability to
find women. In Indian set up, social, cultural and economic factors also determine
matrimonial alliances decisively. For instance, religious and caste affiliations, parental
preferences, kinship norms, village exogamy, individual status in terms of physical
appearance, educational qualifications, earning capabilities, etc, also robustly determine the
choices of boys and girls, besides dowry transactions, if any. For men seeking to marry, there
are several ways to overcome the shortages in brides-to-be, with the assumption that even
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low, yet there is substantial unevenness in sex ratio among different social and economic
subgroups in the region.
These include diluting the caste endogamy in marriages and expanding the choices to girls
from other castes, restricting the geographical exogamy further, postponing the marriage
longer by marrying late, looking for brides who may be younger than usual or even older, etc.
In any case these options are still rife with consequences that are not desirable.
There are reports that scarcity of women in an environment of poverty and lack of
development has led to re-emergence of “bride price”, the system of paying money to obtain
a wife, and sharing of wives in some communities in Rajasthan, who are in the lower
echelons of the society in terms of caste hierarchies and economic position If this continues
in a wider scale, it is the rich and powerful who are better poised for matrimony than others.
Some envisage that difficulties and inability in finding a female partner would lead to social
tensions, particularly manifested in crime against women. The age at marriage, when
involuntarily pushed upward as a result of inability in finding a match will result in longer
spousal gaps. The increasing and widespread incidence of “Boy-Girl tests" in urban centers
will have serious consequences.
In Mumbai and Delhi, the child sex ratio is far below the national average and the girl
population has dropped in 23 cities14. One argument put forth by the medical professionals
engaged in sex determination is " if family planning is desirable, why not sex planning?".
Even there are many who consider the sex selective abortion is a way out for many women
living under a dominant patriarchal set up with cultural sanctions. The economic logic behind
this argument is "sex selection at conception will reduce the supply of women, they will
become more valuable, and female children will be better cared for and will live longer. We
have here a good instrument for balancing the supply of and demand for women, and for
equating their price all over India (since caste, regional, religious, and other barriers prevent
the movement of women). So in course of time one should expect dowries to fall in the
North. However, countering this logic, states that scarcity of women is symptomatic of their
low value and in the states where sex ratios are lowest (like Punjab) there is no evidence so
far that social mechanisms are developing to raise the value of women.
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Field Work/ Data Analysis
This section covers the basic aim of our project, which is analysing the ratio of females per
males available in the Jhunjhunu district of Rajasthan. This initiative behind this case study is
to observe the sex ratio and thinking of people about the same issue on certain aspects.
For the purpose of this case study, I selected the following villages:
1. Jherli Village
2. Raila Village
3. Bishanpura Village
Here I observed that the available aids, facilities, Status and thinking of people had difference
in their approach towards life, even though these villages were found to be located in the
vicinity areas. The reasons behind these were
1. Family background
2. Exposure to New technology
3. Unavailability of infrastructures, etc.
4. Least media Exposure
5. Almost zero percent Awareness
Findings of the Surveys
1. Jherli village: This village is located in the vicinity of Pilani and about 5 km far from
it.
2. Raila Village: This village is located near Pilani. This village also is being adopted by
BITS-Pilani and various help is provided to this village by BITS. So during our
survey, the behaviour of the people out was very cordial.
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3. Bishanpura Village: This is the next village that comes after “PAHADI Mandir”. It is approx. 6KM away from Pilani. The artisan community here were making “handicraft decorative materials.
Educational Level of the Respondents
17% of male and 47% of females in rural area and 12% of male and 30% of females of urban area are
illiterate. Further, 42% of rural and 35% of urban male and 38% of rural and 35% of urban females
have studied up to middle. In rural area only 8% male and 2% female and in urban areas 14 and 6%
of males and females hold graduate or post graduate degrees. In the District where the survey is
conducted the education level of the respondents is
Male Female
Illiterate 11.4 33.2
Primary 10.0 17.7
Middle 22.3 23.2
Secondary 30.1 16.4
Senior Secondary 14.0 5.0
Graduate &above 12.2 4.5
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Data Analysis
This section will provide the details of the data we got from our survey. This was mainly conducted by the means of questionnaire. The questionnaire was divided into two sections.
Section: I
Villager’s Perception
1. Are you satisfied with the number of females as compared to males in your village
2. If not, why?
Most of the people were not aware and simply said it seems that it is less without any reason.
Do you Son or Daughter?
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3. If you want son what are the reasons for avoiding daughters?
4. Do you know about the declining sex ratio??
5. How do you grade male to female ratio in your village?
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6. Societal repercussions of decreasing girl child sex ratio
a. Imbalance 47%
b. Increase in crimes against women 36%
. Non specific responses 10%
d. Polyandry 7%
7. Do you take pregnant lady to the sex detection test?
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8. If yes what is the response of health worker?
9. Are aware of sex determination activities?
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10. If yes what are the reasons for female feticide?
11. Do you know about the PCPNDT (Pre conception and Pre Natal Diagnostic Techniques) act?
a. Rules and Penalty
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b. Sex determination is a crime
c. Penalty clause for pregnant women
12. Have you taken any step to improve the condition of sex ratio in your village?
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Just negligible amount of people have done one or the other thing for the increasing of the sex ratio in their village. Those who have done one or the other things are mostly teachers or the army retired.
13. Do you think this awareness will help in improving the sex ratio?
Section: II
Hospital Interaction
1. Are you aware of the techniques for determining sex of a child?
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2. If yes, what are they and which one you use?
The technique used is Sonography and Ultrasound, but we don’t use it for determining the sex of the unborn baby. We used for the other purposes as advised by the physician or the doctor.
3. Do the pregnant women come to you for advice or ultrasound?
4. What are the reasons for Ultrasound?
5. Do you display PCPNDT Act copy or inform people about it?
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6. What do you suggest to increase sex ratio?
The sex ratio can only be improved by creating awareness among people and telling them about the consequences of the problem.
9. Conclusion and Recommendations
Despite the natural biological endowments, the existing evidence, reiterated time and again, in defiance to all the efforts has led to decrease in sex ratio in general and child sex ratio in particular. There is sufficient evidence that the developments in technology which were expected to facilitate the healthy outcome of the physiological process have been regularly abused under one or the other pretext. There are legislations with content and context well laid out but the societal pressures and the economic forces driving the profession, at times for easy money; has made a mockery of them.
The only the Raila village which is adopted by BITS, Pilani was relatively better when it came to the implementation mechanism, the penal provisions under the Act the damages that misuse of the technique has done in already distorted sex ratio.
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Somehow at the other villages, the understanding on the said issues needs impassivity particularly so when it comes to regular monitoring registered centers and booking the defaulters in a full proof manner the only comforting observation is that villages, all the authorities have shared their concern with decreasing sex ratio particularly the number of girl children but then it appears that every body’s concern stands as no one’s responsibility, evident enough through the data triangulated from different sources.
In the study household’s women who were pregnant at the time of survey, 36% of them had an expectation for a male child while 17% wanted a female child (as the breakup of number of children they already had before this pregnancy was not recorded, the interpretation is a little difficult but the observations from all other respondents and various reasons accorded for son preference it appears that these women must have had desired number of male children prior to this pregnancy).
The other shocking observation is that 26% of the pregnant women have themselves gone for USG for sex determination without a medical advice. This reinforces that it is the elite and educated who are making a palpable dent in the girl child sex ratio (While income and education do increase the use of PCPNDT, its misuse is governed more by cultural factors and sex composition of children already born. Multiple reasons were offered by the respondents from the community for preference given to son, son needed for maintaining family tree, being the commonest excuse.
The awareness of PCPNDT Act and the penal provisions apart from the fact that sex detection is illegal is fairly large in both the sexes in the rural areas but the associated findings reflect that despite the knowledge practices have not changed and the girl child remains neglected. The social consequence of distorted sex ratio is a matter of concern among the community respondents but their translation into action has not been there. The health workers and the hospital keep a good track of the entire pregnancy period and are well versed with the conditions for referral, still a high maternal mortality ratio and this is where we failed to justify the responses of health workers.
Pregnant women do contact and ask for sex detection centres but are counselled and advised not to go for it as legally it is a crime. With 26% of women (self motivated) going for USG for sex detection it appears that some other forces are working in the society exploiting the inherent psyche where the male is the preferred sex; defy the efforts of workers from the system.
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The community, the health workers and the medical officers collectively hold the society and pregnant women herself for abusing the PCPNDT and are aware that distorted sex ratio leads to polyandry, increase in crimes in general and sexual crimes in particular, but the deep rooted values have been hard to hit. The need for putting PCPNDT Act in place, the knowledge about the appropriate authority is well known to health workers and all of them singled out the need for media and the NGOs to make concerted efforts in increasing the awareness levels and work with community putting the girl child at the same pedestal, if not higher.
There is a strong need emerging out of the study that the pregnant women and the family needs to be counselled for not going for sex detection and accepting the girl child. Medical officers in general and those who are operating the USG centers be it in private or public sector are in knowledge of the statutory requirements to operate such a center. Majority of them are aware of the requirements to be fulfilled, penal provisions under the Act and the conditions under which a pregnant women can be subjected to USG, but for the poor enforcement keep on flouting these obligations like registration of machines with the appropriate authority and display of signage indicating ‘sex determination is illegal’.
10. Bibliography Agarwal, Bina,(1997) ”Bargaining” and Gender Relations: within and Beyond the
Hosuehold, FCND Discussion Paper
Agnihotri, S.B. (2000). Sex Ratio Patterns in the Indian Population:A Fresh Exploration, Sage Publications, New Delhi.
Agnihotri, S.B. (1995). Missing Females : A Disaggregated Analysis, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol.30 (19), pp. 2074-84.
Arnold, Fred, Minja Kim Choe and T.K. Roy (1998). Son Preference, the Family Building Process and Child Mortality in India, Population Studies, 52, pp. 301-15.
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Arnold, Fred, Sunita Kishor, and T.K.Roy (2002). Sex-selective Abortions in India, Population and Development Review, Vol. 28(4).
Athreya, V. (2002). Gender and Survival in the Decade of Reforms: What Does Census, The Indian Economic Journal, Vol. 50(2), pp. 43.
Basu, Alaka (1992). Culture, the Status of Women and Demographic Behavior, Oxford. Basu, Alka Malwade (1988), How economic development can overcome culture: demographic change in Punjab.
Basu, A.M. (1989). Is Discrimination in Food Really Necessary for Explaining Sex Differentials in Childhood Mortality? Population Studies, Vol. 48, pp.193- 210.
11. References
1. National Commissions Annual Reports 2006, 2007 and 2008.2. People from the villages of Jherli, Raila, Bishanpura.3. www.wikipedia.org 4. www.Economictimes.com 5. INDIA TODAY 2001 6. Times Of India
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12. Annexure: I
The Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques(Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994
Was Between 1991 and 2001, the sex ratio for the 0-6 group in many urban centres declined
considerably. It declined in Pune (from 943 to 906), in Amritsar (861 to 783), in Kurukshetra
(868 to 770), in Vadodara (934 to 873), Rajkot (914 to 844), Ambala (888 to 784) and in
Ahmedabad (914 to 814). Other bigger urban areas like, Delhi, Bombay and Bangalore also
exhibit a decline in the sex ratio for the 0-6 group. The affluent and prosperous pockets in
these urban areas show the steepest decline, indicating that higher levels of wealth and
welfare do not automatically mean a positive change in the status of women. Delhi alone has
more than 700 ultrasound units that are registered and many more that are not. 2002 study by
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the Institute of Development and Communication in Chandigarh reveals that 92% of
educated, high-income group of women who went in for sex determination tests were aware
that it was illegal while 77% of those who opted for female feticide knew it was a crime. 43%
of the sampled families perceived the male child as a prospective earner, 58% as protector
and 55% considered the girls as a definite burden.
The act enacted and came into operation from 1st January, 1996 (referred to as the PNDT
Act). However, during the course of implementation of the said Act, certain inadequacies and
practical difficulties in the administration of the Act came to the notice of the government. At
the same time techniques have been developed to select the sex of the child before
conception, which may also contribute to the declining sex ratio.
Taking into consideration these developments, the PNDT Act has been amended. The
amended Act came into force with effect from 14 th February, 2003. The Act is now read as:
The Pre-conception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act,
1994.
The Salient features of the Act are:
Sex determination of urban child is not permissible under Preconception and Pre-
natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994.
Utilization of ultra-Sonography, amniocentesis to determine and communicate the
sex of an unborn is punishable under the law since January 1996.
Any person conducting ultrasonography on a pregnant woman shall give a
declaration on each report on ultrasonography that she/he has neither detected nor
disclosed the sex of foetus of the pregnant woman to anybody.
No person, including a specialist or a team of specialists in the field of infertility,
shall conduct or aid in conducting sex selection in any tissue, embryo, concepts, fluid
or gametes derived from either or both of them.
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All clinics conducting ultrasound scans must be registered and must display
prominently a notice in English or in the local language that sex determination of
foetus is prohibited under the law.
Use of Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques are allowed only on medical grounds for
detecting abnormalities, disorders and congenital anomaly etc. and for determining
sex of the foetus.
No persons conducting pre-natal diagnostic procedure under the law shall
communicate to pregnant woman concerned or her relatives the sex of the foetus by
words or signs or any other method.
Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques can be conducted only by genetic clinics, genetic
laboratories, and genetic centres which have been registered under the PNDT Act.
Clinics involved in sex determination tests or advertisements by a doctor or a clinic
for conducting the sex determination test of unborn baby are equally liable for
punishment under the PNDT Act.
Doctors and radiologists conducting or soliciting patients for sex determination tests
can be imprisoned up to five years and fined up to Rs. 50,000. Cognizable, non-bail
able and non-compoundable are the offences under the PNDT Act.
Annexure: Ii
Questionnaire
Personal Details:
Name: Marital Status:
Sex: Male/ Female
Villager’s Perception
1. Are you satisfied with the number of females as compared to males in your village?
a. Yes
b. No
2. If not, why?
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____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
3. You want a son or daughter?
4. Do you know about the declining of sex ratio?
a. Yes b. No
5. How do you grade male to female ratio in your village?
a. Better b. Same c. Lower d. Can’t say
6. What are the reasons for avoiding daughters?
a. Religious Rituals b. Family Procreation c. Economic security
7. Societal repercussions of decreasing girl child sex ratio?
a. Imbalance b. Increase in crimes against women c. Non specific responses d. Polyandry
2. Do you take pregnant lady to the sex detection test?
a. Yes b. No
3. If yes what is the response of health worker?
a. It is a crime b. Simply refuse c. Ask for money and do it
4. Are aware of sex determination activities?
a. Yes b. No
5. If yes what are the reasons for female feticide?
a. Misuse of technique b. Lack of awareness c. Dowry system d. Social Insecurity e. Son Preference f. Religious Rituals
6. Do you know about the PCPNDT (Pre conception and Pre Natal Diagnostic Techniques) act.
a. Rules and Penalty b. Sex determination is a crime c. Penalty clause for pregnant women
7. Have you taken any step to improve the condition of sex ratio in your village?
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a. Yes b. No
8. If yes; please specify the nature of improvement:
9. Do you think this awareness will help in improving the sex ratio?
a. Yes b. No
Section: II
Hospital Interaction
7. Are you aware of the techniques for determining sex of a child?
a. Yes
a. No
8. If yes, what are they and which one you use?
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9. Do the pregnant women come to you for advice or ultrasound?
a.Yes
b. No
10. What are the reasons for Ultrasound?
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a. Age of child
b. Abnormal Configuration Deformity
c. Sex detection
11. Do you display PCPNDT Act copy or inform people about it
a.Yes
b. No
6. What do you suggest to increase sex ratio?
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