FEMALE FOETICIDE IN DELHI/NCR: EXPLORING THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL DIMENSIONS (original) (raw)
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FEMALE FOETICIDE PERCEPTIONS AND PRACTICES AMONG WOMEN IN SURAT CITY
National Journal of Community Medicine, 2011
Female foeticide besides skewed sex ratio and its attendant social evils has grave ethical undertones, especially for medical professionals and our commitment to save lives. Randomly selected 270 women were interviewed using a semi-structured interview schedule to explore the female foeticide perceptions and practices among couples in Surat city. Only 148 (51.9%) of the women were aware of the fact that 3 female children killed every minute in India. Prenatal sex determination among their relatives and neighbours were reported by 80% respondent, though they themselves had never resorted to it. Could this figure influence the proxy rates for community behaviour, perhaps, this needs indepth exploration. Supporting to this fact, 25.9% respoindents reported of ever been pressurized by their family members to undergo prenatal sex diagnosis of their foetus. Encouragingly 90% respondents had opined that that repeated prenatal sex diagnosis and abortions are detrimental to the mental and physical health of a woman and is wholly preventable. Stricter laws and honest enforcement of these laws were the commonest suggestions by respondent to prevent female foeticide in society.
Female Feticide: A Social Evil in India (Challenges before Us)
IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 2014
In a modern time, Female feticide-the selective abortion of female fetuses, females not only face discrimination in this culture, they are even denied the right to be born female feticide determined by many factors, but mostly by the vision of having to pay a dowry to the upcoming bridegroom of a daughter. While birth of the baby boy offer refuge of their families in old time and can execute the rites for the souls of late parents and ancestors, daughters are treated as a social and economic encumber. In India feticide is a moderately new practice, rising concurrently with the advent of technological advancements in prenatal sex determination on a large scale in the 1990s. Detection technologies have been distorted, allowing the selective abortions of female offspring to proliferate. Legally, however, female feticide is a penal offence although female infanticide has long been committed in India, According to the Census 2001 report the declining sex ratio which has been dropped to alarming levels, female feticide become common in the middle and higher socioeconomic households, especially in north zone because of the low status of women such as dowry, looking up for son, as concern with family name are the main evil practice performing sex selection abortions in India. There is an urge to reinforce the law to stop these kinds of illegal practices, it impact overall societies especially on women. The paper will discuss the socio-legal challenges female feticide presents, as well as the consequence of having too few women in Indian society.
International Journal Of Community Medicine And Public Health, 2018
Background: Female foeticide is perhaps one of the worst forms of violence against women where a woman is denied her most basic and fundamental right i.e. “the right to life”. Exorbitant dowry demand is one of the main reasons for female infanticide and other reasons include belief that it is only the son who can perform the last rites, that lineage and inheritance runs through the male line, sons will look after parents in old age, men are bread winners etc. The present study was aimed to assess the awareness & perception regarding female foeticide among adolescents in rural community.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 200 school students with a pre-tested, semi structured questionnaire in order to assess the awareness & perception regarding female foeticide among adolescents. Data collected was analysed using SPSS software.Results: Majority (52.5%) of the study subjects were males. Majority (70%) of the subjects could define foeticide. Boys have better knowledge ...
A CRY STILL UNHEARD: A MENACE OF FEMALE FOETICIDE SOCIETAL ATTITUDE TOWARDS FEMALE FOETICIDE
Journal of Social Sciences, (COES&RJ-JSS), 2013
India has an age old fascination with the boy child and considers the birth of a girl as a bad investment in future. A girl is considered to be consumer rather than a producer, and this narrow viewpoint of the Indian patriarchal society has lead to horrid practices like female infanticide and female foeticide. There is societal pressure for women to have male children and failures tend to feel guilty after giving birth to a girl. Such women are at risk of being beaten and rejected by their husbands. This can even lead to rejection by in-laws and by the society as a whole. Keeping in view the above discourse the present paper aims to study the attitude of society towards female foeticide.
This paper attempts to discuss the basal factors that impel people to choose to practice female foeticide in India. Son preference and the cost of providing dowries are very important in this regard, but not the only reasons. Apart from their economic, social, and religious value to the parents, sons also play a signal role in defending the family against violence. However, the degree of son preference shows strong positive correlation with level of daughter aversion in large parts of the country. Hence, in order to locate the basal reasons of female foeticide, it is necessary to understand the dynamics of both son preference and daughter aversion.
Research Square (Research Square), 2024
In the Global South, a disproportionate number of young married women who have unwanted and mistimed pregnancies, undergo unsafe abortion practices, leading to a heightened burden of maternal and infant deaths in developing countries. Unsafe abortion practices are frequently associated with limited contraceptive methods with a skewed focus on female sterilisation, a high unmet need for contraception, poor quality of sexual and reproductive health care services, low male involvement in reproductive health matters, and widespread gender discrimination against girls and women, which limit their access to quality health care services. The present qualitative study attempts to examine the practice of induce abortion at the village as well as assess the socio-structural barriers lead to the poor sexual and reproductive health in rural Uttar Pradesh, India. The study underlines the lived experience and process of decision-making related to induced abortion, and the intertwined family, social and healthcare-associated challenges faced by young married women in rural Uttar Pradesh, India. Evidence from the study suggests that inability to use safe contraception methods, unsupportive behaviour of the spouse towards childcare, nancial hardship, lack of accessibility and affordability of contraception methods, lesser decision-making power, and social norms and customs appeared to pose critical barriers to safe abortion practices among young married women. Findings from the study also highlight an abysmal dearth of access to safe, affordable and quality abortion care services in rural Uttar Pradesh. The study emphasized individual and community-level perspectives on young married women's or married couples' decisions regarding induced abortion in rural Uttar Pradesh, besides highlighting various forms of social stigma, discrimination and health-related complications faced by them. This calls for program managers and policy makers to increase investments in high-quality comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services, and to revitalize efforts for greater male involvement in reproductive health matters, so as to ensure safe pregnancy and child health experiences in the Indian context. Background A large number of unintended and mistimed pregnancies have contributed to high rates of unsafe abortions and reproductive health issues worldwide [1]. Women's reproductive health is related to multiple human rights, mainly those that recognize the fundamental right of couples and individuals to freely decide the number, spacing and timing of their children [2], [3]. The reproductive rights of women are concerned with the following healthcare services: (a) availability of an adequate number of healthcare facilities, (b) physical and economic accessibility, (c) accessibility without discrimination, and (d) quality of healthcare services (United Nations Human Rights, 2015). However, the unavailability of safe and affordable healthcare services and contraception increases the number of mistimed, unwanted pregnancies and miscarriages that directly affect women's reproductive health. One of the key Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to reduce maternal deaths and ensure universal access to reproductive health and the health and wellbeing of all ages 1. In particular, SDG 3.7 highlights the "universal access to sexual and reproductive health care services, including family planning, education and information, and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programs." Furthermore, target 5.6 ensures access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights [4]. The right to safe abortion is an important component of women's sexual and reproductive health. Women have the right to make decisions regarding their body and reproductive life, the right to safe sex, affordable contraception, and the right to procreate and have a family [5], [6]. Unsafe abortion leads to maternal deaths, and, of the 55.9 million unsafe abortions that occur each year, 49.3 million are in developing countries [7]. According to recent studies, 35 abortions occur globally every year per 1000 women aged 15-44 [8]. The Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971[9] was passed by the Indian Parliament and came into force in 1972. This Act addressed itself to the task of reducing maternal mortality and morbidity resulting from unsafe abortion practices. Until 1971, abortion was not considered legitimate. Despite more than 50 years of liberalization, close to eight women die each day due to unsafe abortions [10] and continue to face many social and structural barriers to accessing safe abortion services. A critical underlying concern is that women have the right to control their sexuality, reproduction and fertility, yet this is not the basis on which the MTP Act was formulated. Typically, the pregnancies under this Act include those resulting from rape or an unwanted pregnancy arising out of the failure of a contraceptive used by a married woman or her husband. Hence at all stages of the pregnancy, health care providers and doctors are the ones carrying out the decision of abortion rather than the women seeking the abortion. Researchers and policymakers therefore have a duty to explore these new dimensions-to measure the intention of abortion by improving the measurement of pregnancy status and fertility preferences-by examining the differences due to changing individual circumstances, variations in community norms and value systems, from a socioeconomic perspective.
Backgroud: Female foeticide is a process of aborting perfectly healthy female fetuses after about 18 weeks (or more) of gestation just because they are females. The same fetuses would've been allowed to live if they were males. There is no question that female foeticide is not just unethical but it is downright cruel as well. Unethical because despite being in good health, the aborted baby girls' chance at life was taken away just because they were females, whilst they would've been permitted to live if they were males. Cruel because they were already partially grown and well on their way to become persons we refer to as the human infants. The killing of women exists in various forms in societies the world over. However, Indian society displays some unique and particularly brutal versions, such as dowry deaths and sati. Female foeticide is an extreme manifestation of violence against women. Female fetuses are selectively aborted after pre-natal sex determination, thus avoiding the birth of girls. In the case of female foeticide, majority of abortions are done after 18 weeks of gestation because that's when the gender of the fetus is visible with the available ultrasound scan technology.
Female Foeticide and Gender Inequality in India: Issue of Attention
International Journal of Innovative Science and Modern Engineering, 2020
In spite of a high rate of growth and ample government initiatives to maintain equality in case of gender , the gap between genders still exist in India. In India, based on their sex, gender variation is usually prescribed as the injustice or discrimination against women. Gender inequality limits women's participation in various fields and it also hampers the life of the future generation also. Women are confronted with many hurdles in everywhere. Female foeticide is one of the worst types of discrimination against females where a female is refused her most essential and fundamental right, i.e. the right to live life. In India, female foeticide means outside of valid law, the abortion of a female foetus. In India, the recurrence of female foeticide is expanding day by day. In present day, it seems that the sex determination test leading to the practice of female foeticide overlooked and uncomplicated than before. Since ancient days, killing of female foetus is an extraordinary feature under the rule of patriarchy in Indian society. According to census report, the child sex ratio has decreased from 945 girls (0-6 years) per 1000 boys (0-6 years) in 1991 it is 927 girls per 1000 boys in 2001 to 919 girls per 1000 boys in 2011. The picture of female foeticide in NorthEast India is quite good as compared to the other states of India. As per the census 2011, Arunachal Pradesh has the highest child ratio among the Indian states i.e. 972 while Haryana has the lowest child sex ratio i.e. 834 per thousand males. According to decennial Indian census, the sex ratio in the 0 to 6 age group in India has risen from 102.4 males per 100 females in 1961, to 104.2 in 1980, to 107.5 in 2001, to 108.9 in 2011. On this background, here, an attempt has been made to examine the issue of female foeticide as an indicator of gender inequality in India. This paper is mostly descriptive in nature entirely based on secondary data.
Changing strategies of female foeticide in India: a never ending story
International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health
Historically, in the absence of genetic testing, infanticide was the only inhuman option for discarding the female child. This heinous practice continues today in the southern parts of India where families cannot afford an illegal ultrasound test. People in Punjab, Haryana and other Western states can afford illegal test to determine the sex of the baby and discard it' (From the Tribune, Chandigarh 2003/09/1).
Background In the Global South, a disproportionate magnitude of young married women, who have had unwanted and mistimed pregnancies, undergo unsafe abortion practices. This leads to a heightened burden of maternal and infant deaths in developing countries. Among other things, unsafe abortion practices are often associated with limited contraceptive method-mix with skewed focus on female sterilization, high unmet need for contraception, poor quality of sexual and reproductive health care services, low male involvement in reproductive health matters, and widespread gender inequalities against girl and women restricting their access to quality health care services. However, there is a paucity of scientific evidence related to individual and community level pathways associated with unsafe abortion practices among young married women in the context of developing countries in general, and India in particular. Objective The present qualitative study attempts to examine the knowledge, attit...