Preferences for the male child is common across almost all Asian countries. Despite the economic growth of the recent decades, the situation hasn’t really improved and in some cases has actually deteriorated. But South Korea finally seems to be bucking the trend,

In South Korea, once one of Asia’s most rigidly patriarchal societies, a centuries-old preference for baby boys over baby girls is fast receding. Demographers have welcomed the shift, which they say holds promise for other Asian countries, like China, India and Vietnam. There a continuing preference for boys, coupled with access to ultrasound technology, has led to the widespread practice of aborting female fetuses, resulting in a large imbalance between boys and girls.

“China and India are closely studying South Korea as a trendsetter in Asia,” said Chung Woo Jin, a professor at Yonsei University in Seoul. “They are curious whether the same social and economic changes can occur in their countries as fast as they did in South Korea’s relatively small and densely populated society.”[link]

It’s not quite clear what factors are responsible for this change in societal attitude. Nevertheless,  as the report points out, the economic independence of women–rather than legislative efforts–is the key reason.

A new report by Pricewaterhousecoopers makes an interesting revelation: Women may be doing better in business in developing countries than in the developed world,

Samuel DiPiazza, global head of PwC, said: “The cultural and societal norms and perceptions in developed countries are much deeper and long-lasting, especially when it comes to business.

“In some countries such as Germany and Switzerland, there are cultural and social perceptions of women that make advancement much more challenging. Whereas in the developing world, where there is a huge cry for talent, where there is enormous growth, you must be able to adjust to these norms faster.”[link]

Interestingly, the report claims that China’s much-maligned one-child policy has actually advanced gender equality,

In China, the controversial one child policy was established to control population growth, but the Chinese interviewees saw it as having a positive effect on women’s participation in the workforce.Families with a daughter, for example, have been active in promoting gender equality, which has brought a shift of perceptions in the country. They have also lavished investment on education for their single child, male or female.In addition, daughters do not have to compete with male siblings for parental recognition, which has translated into higher self-esteem for women.

Of course, things are not so rosy everywhere.

And so is sex-determination

Policy Wise has in the past pointed out that it is futile to regulate women’s reproductive choices. A new study by the World Health organization brilliantly illustrates this point,

“We now have a global picture of induced abortion in the world, covering both countries where it is legal and countries where laws are very restrictive,” Dr. Paul Van Look, director of the W.H.O. Department of Reproductive Health and Research, said in a telephone interview. “What we see is that the law does not influence a woman’s decision to have an abortion. If there’s an unplanned pregnancy, it does not matter if the law is restrictive or liberal.”

But the legal status of abortion did greatly affect the dangers involved, the researchers said. “Generally, where abortion is legal it will be provided in a safe manner,” Dr. Van Look said. “And the opposite is also true: where it is illegal, it is likely to be unsafe, performed under unsafe conditions by poorly trained providers.”[link]

The important question is this: Why do well-meaning people continue to think that state intervention can solve the problem of selective abortion of female fetuses?

Abortion is a right. So should be sex determination.

In a recent judgment, the Mumbai High Court has ruled against a plea seeking quashing of the amendment to Preconception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques Act (PCPNDT Act) which prohibits sex-determination. The petitioners argued that the PCPNDT Act in its current form was in conflict with Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act (MTP Act) of1972. The Court in its judgment said that sex determination was against the spirit of the Indian constitution and upheld the impugned amendment.

Sex determination and abortion in India is primarily regulated by two laws. The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act (MTP Act) of 1972 and the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act of 1994 subsequently amended into the PCPNDT Act in 2003 following the orders of the Supreme Court in CEHAT V Union of India–ostensibly to plug in the loopholes in the original act. The legislation regulates the use of prenatal diagnostic techniques for the determination of the sex of a fetus, and prohibits sex-determination as it would lead to selective female foeticide.

So is the PCPNDT Act in conflict with MTP Act? In one sense it is. Foeticide is defined as the act of killing the fetus–indeed, it is the first step in abortion. Hence, it is fallacious to distinguish foeticide from abortion as long as it is performed with the express approval of the mother. Unfortunately, this is the fallacy which marks the arguments of women activists who uphold the right to abortion while decrying the practice of female ”foeticide”.

To understand why the Court may have maintained the difference between foeticide and abortion, it would be useful to have a short discussion of the MTP Act. It would help us understand why in country like India where gender rights are not nearly as advanced as in the West, a law of this nature was enacted in the first place. According to this act, a pregnancy can be terminated by a Registered Medical Practitioner in the following two events: a) if it poses a grave risk to mother’s mental or physical health b) if there is a substantial risk that child would suffer from mental or physical abnormalities. Interestingly enough, by the way of explanation, a clause has been inserted which permits abortion in case of contraceptive failure (only in case of married mothers) which is defined as having met the standard of event one. (Threat to mother’s mental health.) It is clear from the above discussion that the express purpose of the above act was to act as a population control mechanism. The unfettered right to abortion it has granted (via the contraceptive failure clause which for obvious reasons is unverifiable) is a de facto implication–not de jure.

Thus, even though abortion is virtually unrestricted in India, it is not founded on the principle of primacy of women over her own body. To understand this vital philosophical difference, we have to look at American jurisprudence. Roe V. Wade, the historical US Supreme Court decision overturned anti-abortion laws because they violated privacy laws deriving from the Due Process clause of the 14th amendment to the US constitution. But is the right to abortion only linked to privacy? In Carhart v Gonzales, the US Supreme Court recently upheld the the Congresses’ ban on partial birth abortions. In her spirited dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (joined by justices Breyer, Souter and Stevens) wrote,

This legal challenges to undue restrictions on abortions do not seek to vindicate some generalized notion of privacy; rather they center on a women’s autonomy to decide her life’s course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature.

Coming from this philosophical tradition, right to abortion is not merely linked to privacy but is an essential element in ensuring that women enjoy equal rights in the society. Hence, any restrictions on abortion–even those imposed in the name of societal goods–are violative of women’s autonomy. Further, the right to sex determination is intricately link to right to abortion. Almost every argument in favor of abortion would be equally applicable to sex-determination. Hence, those who favor abortion as a right rather than merely a privilege granted by the state in case of accidents cannot morally argue against sex determination even if leads to female ”foeticide”. It is plainly disingenuous to argue, as Pamela Philipose does, that the state has the right to interfere in plainly private matters in the name of ‘’societal demands”,

To the first argument, one can only say that society has often had to choose between competing rights and social goods — in this case the right/need of an individual to choose the sex of his or her child is pitted against society’s right/need to have more equal sex ratios — while legislating on various issues. Consequently, in the light of certain socially desirable goals, the state would have to favour one right/ good over another. Almost every law or regulation is evolved after making such determinations. To take a facile example, the right of a motorist to arrive at a destination as quickly as possible has to contend with traffic signals which place restrictions on the movement of all commuters for public safety.

Philipose’s analogy is wrong for two reasons. First, red lights or speed limits don’t restrict the motorist’s right to reach his destination; they merely impose some limits on an essentially public behavior. Second, the motorist derives direct benefit from these restrictions as on a lawless road he is far more likely to suffer injuries or get delayed. In case of abortion, not only is the state controlling an essentially private affair but also demanding sacrifices at the individual level without offering direct benefits for the individual concerned. In other words, while it is indeed true that a better sex ratio benefits the society, it is hard to divide that collective benefit among individuals in an equitable manner.
A far better analogy would be a healthy sex ratio and public transport. It is given that public transport serves society’s goals (keeps down costs, pollution e.t.c.) but would coercive methods be advocated to make people give up private transport? Or it would be better to incentivize public transport via subsidies or congestion charges? I would argue that in both cases the societal goals would be better served by policy measure which rely on incentives and not coercion.

Second, we look at the administrative argument. While India has never lacked laws, it is implementation side which frequently leaves much to be desired. According to government’s own figures, the rate of conviction under the PCPNDT Act remains abysmally low with the first conviction under the Act only happening in 2006! This, for a law which has been in the statue books since 1994, points to a more systematic failure than merely an administrative one. And what may that be? One of the standard arguments offered by women activists against anti-abortion laws is that those who want it desperately enough would obtain it irrespective of what the law says. Further, it only pushes them away from mainstream medical practice and in to the hands of quacks. Correct. Pray, then why shouldn’t be the same argument apply in case of people wanting to know the sex of the fetus or wanting to abort it in case it’s a female child? I would argue that in a state which grants an unrestricted right to abortion, it is virtually impossible to attempt to control the sex of the babies being aborted. So the demands for stricter implementation of PCPNDT Act are misplaced; the act is as unimplementable as laws banning abortion would be!

Finally is the economic argument. As Professor Gary Becker (and many others) has argued,

What about the overall effects in a society of skewing the sex ratio of births toward boys? The fewer girls who are born presumably would be better off since they would be better educated, and in other ways better treated by parents who want them. This would be reinforced if the effect of sex selected abortions is to lower the overall birth rate since it is well established that families with fewer children invest more in each one, girls as well as boys.

As children become adults in cohorts with a high ratio of boys, the advantage of girls and women increases since they are scarcer

The most important argument is this: should unwilling parents be forced to have children? And if they do so; how would they treat them? While the skewed sex ratio is not desirable, should the quality of life of girl-child be sacrificed at the altar of mere numbers?

As Policy Wise has argued before, the key to saving babies is empowering mothers; ensuring female education; and ensuring equal economic opportunities. The state–instead of policing measures–would be well-advised to devote its energy in tacking these key challenges. Restricting sex-determination which de facto limits the right to abortion is an assault on women’s independence and primacy over her destiny.

Government’s decision to monitor pregnancies is a regressive step.

In a bid to check female infanticide and the worsening sex ratio, the Indian government has decided to make registration mandatory for all pregnancies. Further, abortions would now be allowed under certain circumstances.

On Thursday, Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Chowdhury told Hindustan Times that she wanted each pregnancy to be registered. “This will help to check both foeticide and infant mortality,” she said.

Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss had said on Wednesday, “We will provide facilities to conduct pregnancy tests in each village. It will help provide better healthcare facilities to mother and child.”

[link]

Abortions in India are currently governed by the Medical termination of Pregnancy Act 1971. While the act only allows termination of pregnancies (upto 20 weeks) if it would cause ”grave injury to physical and mental health of the women”, it leaves a big loophole.

Where any pregnancy occurs as a result of failure of any device or method used by any married woman or her husband for the purpose of limiting the number of children, the anguish caused by such unwanted pregnancy may be resumed to constitute a grave injury to the mental health of the pregnant woman.

Since every contraceptive has a failure rate, and it is practically impossible to verify if contraceptive failure had actually occurred, abortion is virtually on demand in India.

The ease of abortion, while a significant step in gender equality has played its part in skewing the sex ratio in India. However,its effect has been vastly overestimated. The sex ratio in India has followed a largely secular trend; from 972 in 1901 to 946 in independent India’s first census in 1951. In fact, the sex ratio was already 927 in 1971 when the MTP act came in to force and has actually improved to 933 in 2001. While it must be acknowledged that India has been losing a lot of babies due to female infanticide, not all of it is due to easy availability of abortion.

This is hardly the first time the government is attempting to check female infanticide through legislative methods. The Pre-conception pre-natal diagnostic techniques (regulation and prevention of misuse) Act of 1994 banned pre-natal sex determination. However, the first conviction under this act was only handed out in 2006! In the meantime, the British medical journal Lancet has estimated that India lost as many as 5 million female babies! While a case could be made for better implementation of the law, I remain skeptical how much actual effect it would have.

And therein lies the real danger of such efforts. As experience in America has shown, banning abortion is not a long-term solution. People will obtain abortion if they want it sufficiently, and it only pushes women in the hands of quacks thus further damaging their health. Also, the right to abortion is intrinsically linked to right to privacy and is an acknowledgment that a woman enjoys primacy over her own body. While attempting to curb female infanticide, the government is actually damaging gender equality. it also ignores that merely ensuring the birth of the female child is not enough. Apart from post-natal killings which are rampant in certain parts of India, what sort of upbringing she would have in a family which was ready to abort her merely because of her sex. It is quite likely that such a family would show little interest in her education and thus perpetuate this cycle of deprivation. Also, As activists are already pointing out, it would be practically impossible to gather data and it would only empower the babus

There is little doubt that the skewed sex ratio in India represents a major challenge. In fact, according to the 2001 census, the sex ratio among 0-6 age group is even worse and falling rapidly. This indicates that the problem of female infanticide may actually be getting worse. What would be the way forward? Here again the census data is illustrative. Kerala which has a female literacy rate of 87.4% has the best sex ratio in India. Contrast this with Punjab, economically a much more developed state where the sex ratio is 876 or urban Delhi (821). The key to saving female babies is empowering mothers; ensuring education and economic independence for them. This is frequently dismissed as long term measure. That is not always true, districts in Punjab by launching a concerted campaign with involvement of the local people and medical professionals have shown a drastic improvement in as little as five years. Unless women are the primary decision makers when it comes to matters of their own body, there is little hope of improvement.

As children their parents gave them to serve Yellama – the goddess of fertility. Her cult is thousands of years old, her followers spread across southern India. “Being devadasis means we are slaves of the goddess. We have to visit this temple. We wear necklaces of pearls to show we are bound to Yellama. We give blessings and perform her rituals,” says Imla, a devadasi in her 40s who is swathed in a pink and yellow sari.When girls dedicated to Yellama reach puberty they are forced to sacrifice their virginity to an older man. What follows is a life of sexual slavery, they become sanctified prostitutes.

This article here tells us about the life of sexual slavery that devadasis apparently lead. Have always wanted to explore this issue a bit more, especially since there are always mixed opinions in any discussion around them. Mixed opinions in terms of what kind of live they apparently/actually lead, whether they can generally be classified as sex workers or is it a cult close to extinction?

There is another piece here that has been written by Santhaa Reddy, a member of National Commission for Women discussing the history of devadasis and the way their reputation has been maligned and their rightful de taken away from them!

Quoting directly from the article, she argues that “No one else in history seems to have been as much misunderstood as devadasis. No one has been as badly maligned as devadasis. There can be no other example of the truth being twisted in a most blatant manner.”

The truth is that devadasis were an essential part of Indian temples. They performed useful functions at temples like cleaning of temples, lighting lamps, dressing the deities etc. They sang devotional songs and danced in devotion to the deities. They taught music and dance to girls. They kept alive and developed a tradition of classical music and dance. Beyond these historical facts is a vast area of myths and false propaganda.

Go read the full article to see the argument on how the devadasis need to be given their rightful place as an artist as an upholder of classical arts in society.

Vivek has adequately responded to Abi’s post which argued that the standard of students being admitted in IIT is falling and blamed the proliferation of coaching centers for this malaise.

In his response to Vivek’s post, Abi points towards abysmal number of women in IITs’ and posits that this IS because JEE is biased against women. His argument is based on the fact that girls do better than boys in board exams (which of course is not an indicator of any bias but is ”ideal”), but they fail to crack the JEE because it requires coaching. He further argues that since girls crack other competitive exams like medical entrance examinations in adequate numbers, it’s a pointer towards inherent coaching based gender bias of JEE. In my opinion, this a deeply flawed argument.

Abi’s basic premise that medical entrance exams don’t require coaching or can be cracked without outside help is patently wrong. Just like JEE, medical entrance exams go beyond what is asked in high schools and external coaching is as useful as it is in JEE. I would argue that merely looking at the websites of coaching institutes like Aakash would settle this debate. Since IITs’ enjoy a much higher profile than most medical colleges (AIIMS admits only 50 students), JEE gets highlighted even when the exam is not qualitatively different from a medical entrance exam.

Let’s explore this point further. Admission to post graduate medical entrance is via a common entrance test. No doubt, some branches (clinical branches) are more desirable than others, however, the exam makes no allowance for one’s interest or knowledge in a particular branch. It is purely dependent upon one’s final rank in the entrance exam. Yet, a vast majority of girls continue to opt for gynecology rather than other surgical branches like surgery or opthalmology. You cannot argue that surgery is inherently biased towards women because after all even gynecology is a surgical branch. In fact, if we take this further and look at super-specialist branches like cardio-thoracic surgery or neurosurgery, the number of women is almost negligible.

Now, how can this anomaly be explained in terms of entrance exam based gender bias? Surely, it is a reflection of gender bias inherent in our society but how can you blame the entrance exam for the ills of the society? More importantly, how can you design an entrance exam which reflects none of these biases? Let me add, its not only about biases, the preference for gynecology is also a reflection of the desire of women doctors to opt for a ‘’safer” branch where returns are not only guaranteed but also much faster.

Entrance exams as they exist in India are blunt instruments for selecting students. Unless one is prepared to adopt the American system with all their inherent subjectivity, merely tinkering with one particular exam won’t make much of a difference.

Admin note: A guest post by Chandni Malik.

According to a New Supreme Court Judgement, a unilateral decision by either the husband or wife not to have a child will amount to mental cruelty and constitute a ground for divorce.

A Bench comprising Justices B.N. Agrawal, P.P. Naolekar and Dalveer Bhandari said, a “unilateral decision of refusal to have intercourse for a considerable period without there being any physical incapacity or valid reason may amount to mental cruelty.” Writing the judgment, Justice Bhandari said if a man underwent sterilisation without medical reasons and without the consent or knowledge of his wife and similarly if a woman underwent tubectomy or abortion without medical reason or without the consent or knowledge of her husband, such an act might lead to mental cruelty.

I consider the above Supreme Court Judgement a blow to reproductive and sexual rights in India. While it sounds “apparently” gender equal, referring to both men and women in making the reproductive decisions, it does not consider existing unequal gender power relations.
It takes away from all of us, the right to “individually” decide on whether we want to have sex, whether to carry the pregnancy to term or to get it terminated, even whether to use contraception or not! It mandates spousal consent for sterilization and abortion as opposed to existing norms.

Right now it talks of sterilization, tomorrow can extend to other contraceptives as well and it doesn’t even take in to account the fact, that only women can have abortions and that there is a complex context of lopsided power distribution in decision-making that will manifest itself in situations like these.

It is also a contradiction of the “Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act”, which recognises forced and coerced sex among intimate/married partners as a type of domestic violence.

The understanding of Supreme Court judges on gender, reproductive rights and population issues is clearly quite low. And in any case, this particular judgement is very much in tandem with Supreme Court’s typical general right wing stance on most issues.

Divorce on mutual incompatibility I can understand, but to call it cruelty is not just stupid but bordering on the ridiculous! The guidelines comment on very sensitive sexual and reproductive rights – thus taking the debate on individual rights vs. collective rights on one level and denial of rights on the other.

Sure, in a marriage, if one partner wants children and the other doesn’t, it’s a good enough reason for them to separate in my opinion, however let us leave it at that! Incompatibility. Why bring in the notion of cruelty? Just like a man has a right to have a child, so does a woman, not to have one or vice versa!

Similarly, if it is cruel to deny sex to one’s partner, isn’t it equally cruel to force/ expect your partner to do it if they don’t want to?

If you see it from the perspective of an average Indian married woman, one of the countless ones out there – she often does not even know that she is entitled a say in when or whether to have a baby or not! So in practice, no rights left for her, it will be construed as mental cruelty!

She faces a tough choice – right to choice or face the music of mental cruelty. And this is right now just a conceptual argument; we know that there are additional burdens now women will carry, particularly in unequal power relationships where no negotiation is possible for most, on issues related to sex, sexuality or reproduction. Also, there are just so many grey areas and loopholes, for instance, “valid reasons” not to have sex etc…that are so subjective!

It is outrageous for a lot of reasons, but most of all, it’s terrible because it takes away the most basic right of a human being, the right over one’s body and what one wants to do with it.

According to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) findings, only about 57% of Indian women have heard of HIV/AIDS.

India has 5.7 million people living with HIV/AIDS, according to the United Nations, which is the world’s highest caseload. But the prevalence rate, in the country of 1.1 billion people, is much lower than in most of Africa.

The National Family Health Survey (NFHS), the most extensive study on health and nutrition in India, said in its latest report only 57 percent of women have heard of AIDS. In rural areas, where most Indians live, less than half the women — 46 percent — were aware of the disease. Activists said on Friday that poor awareness among women was fuelling the epidemic.

In the past few years, there has been a growing “feminization” of the epidemic in India with nearly 40 percent of all those infected now being women, including housewives. “Biologically, women are more susceptible to HIV,” said Christy Abraham of Action Aid-India. “The lack of awareness adds to the HIV threat they face.”

One reason for low awareness is that the government has focused prevention efforts on high-risk groups like prostitutes and intravenous drug users, rather than on the general population.
Many rural women have been infected by their husbands who work in the cities and visit prostitutes. Stigma stops infected husbands from telling their wives they are HIV-positive.

The NFHS survey, supported by UNICEF as well as the British and U.S. governments, shows a gulf in awareness between men and women, with 80 percent of men having heard of the disease. Only 54 percent of Indian women are literate compared with 76 percent for men. Many women in villages do not have television in their homes and miss out on anti-AIDS advertisements, say activists, calling for a broad- based effort to educate and empower women.

“Even if they do have TVs, there is no electricity in many areas. This is one way how fighting HIV is linked to the issue of general development, “Abraham said. Activists want the government to spend more training and sending grassroots health workers to spread AIDS education among women, especially in poorer and highly populated states.

In the eastern state of Bihar — home to 85 million people — only 35 percent of women have heard of AIDS, with the level of awareness falling to 30 percent in villages.

All that is said here is fine, but one must remember that the lack of awareness for women exists, not just because they don’t have TVs or they don’t know that their husbands might have slept with sex workers in bigger cities, but because of the ineqality that lies in gender relations. Most women ( especially in rural India) have little or no negotiating power when it comes to safe sex practices or monogamous long term relationships.

I don’t know how we manage it, but forget “other” women, even a wife asking her husband to wear a condom translates in to her being a slut. As we keep harping all the time, increase in awareness is just one element of empowerment. To be able to use that imformation to protect oneself and others is equally or more important!

The new Palna Scheme proposed by the Union Women and Child Department aims at curbing female foeticide and to check the skewed sex ratio in the country.
The scheme will be implemented by the ministry of women and child development in coordination with state governments, and is likely to be put in place during the 11th five-year plan.

The idea is to set up a cradle in every district headquarters where parents, who do not want to bring up their girls, can voluntarily give them up and the government will take responsibility of bringing them up.

As with every other scheme, this too has both sides and different connotations. At first read, it is a complete crisis intervention programme. While I do feel that such cradle homes might actually be able to give abandoned children a shelter and might even help in curbing trafficking, we must remember that female foeticide is actually a result of the practice of sex selection.

If I remember, there was something similar taken up at Salem in Tamil Nadu which did not have a great impact. My point is that the larger issue is much more complex and cannot be addressed by such schemes alone.

May be in the case of our country’s poor, who are stuck in a vicious circle of dowry, debts and for whom bringing up girls is actually difficult in the present scenario ( of our culture) , this scheme will help prevent some deaths…but then we don’t believe that its just a problem of the poor, right?

How will this scheme help us in checking what the urban, upper and middle classes are up to?

As the news piece suggests, they are hoping at least some parents will have a change of heart and take back their daughters, but if that doesn’t happen for a lot of children who are abandoned for life, the government should realize that setting up quality institutional care is not easy by any standards. Especially when planned at such a larger scale, the govt has to have its long term plans firmly in place.

As an activist I am definitely skeptical regarding the perception this scheme might continue to propagate…that women are inferior…unwanted…a liability…and most importantly DISPENSABLE.

A policy level decision or a scheme at the national level must always focus on the larger picture or should be clear about the long term repercussions. Unless and until we are able to look at women just like men – useful, valuable, an asset and not a liability, we can’t really solve any issue arising from gender inequality.

There has to be stricter implementation of laws that punish prenatal testing for sex selective termination of pregnancy that includes parents, doctors and other aides in the crime.

Let us not get carried away by what the scheme promises just yet, because it might help the sex ratio or save some lives, but only for a while….in the long term, there is no substitute for total empowerment of women, economic and social.