Ms Ojaswani Asia thoughts on FEMALE FOETICIDE

Female Foeticide is the practice of aborting a foetus when a person finds out that the foetus is female after undergoing a SEX DETERMINATION TEST known as parental diagnostic test. Firstly, its not the female who is responsible for the birth of a girl child; it totally depends upon the father’s sperm.A question arises Why there is so much female foeticide cases arises in India and from where?

Generally, there is a perception that the root cause for female foeticide cases came from uneducated people and from rural areas but reality totally hits different. According to a survey, it is found that this problem came from educated people and from urban areas who have full knowledge about the ultrasound, sonography and all sex determination test. Slowly, it becomes a business who are making ultrasound machines and on the other side there are doctors who do approximately 30-40 sex determination test in order to increase their income.

A Sting operation has been done by two media persons SHRIPAL SHAKTAWAT and MEENA SHARMA to expose this evil in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan came in for special attention. Due to their relentless efforts the government instituted a probe against these doctors but no further action was taken. Infact, many of them had been promoted or cleared of all the charges. In 2011, when PRATIBHA PATIL was the president she took a oath that she will took a very strict action against these doctors but no action was taken till 2011, not even a single license is cancelled.

Do you know what is the root cause of Female Foeticide?The root cause of female foeticide is the dowry system in our society. A number of girls are killed inside the womb due to the fear of dowry by many poor class families. They are worried of giving the dowry during the marriage of their girls, which poor cannot afford and these families sell their girl like selling of ‘cows and goats’. They are forced to do marriage with an elderly person. Most of the brides are purchased from Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar. They purchase the girls for 10000-20000 rupees and even after marriage they are seen as usable thing who has been raped by 3-4 mens in the family and has no respect in the family.

Even if she wanted to fight for her respect, the family members said that we will bring 4-5 women like you for 10000-20000 rupees.Amongst states KERALA has the highest sex ratio of 1084 females to 1000 males, because in this state the number of educated people is more and HARYANA has the lowest sex ratio of 879 females per 1000 males.In an attempt to curb female foeticide, the Indian government enacted the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Technique Act of 1994, which prohibits sex selection and regulates prenatal diagnostic techniques to prevent their misuse.

When I see these tortures against these women, I totally support FEMINISM; according to me feminism is not about being equal to men, its about equal opportunities and when I think about the solution to this problem the most prominent solution which came to my mind to this problem is only in the hands of youth; if they aware about the sexual education there thinking would be totally different. They came to know that the role of women in this society is as important as the role of man and when the youth understand this problem deeply they will start treating women as equals to men and gradually the difference between the sex ratio becomes negligible.

By OJASWANI