Indicators to understand female infanticide and female feticide
Backdrop:
The child sex ratio (0-6 years) has been dramatically declining in Tamil Nadu
over the last 60 years. The girl child sex ratio for Tamil Nadu was 1010 in 1941
and declined to 948 in 1991 and fell to 939 in 2001.
The declining sex ratio, or increasing severe imbalance in the ratio of males to
females in the population, is a grave danger facing the country in general and
Tamil Nadu in particular. Together with female infanticide in Tamil Nadu there is
an increasing prevalence of female feticide.
The rapidly increasing and
widespread availability of modern scientific devices and technologies such as
amniocentesis, chorionic villi biopsy, sex selection X-Y separation of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) practice and now the even cheaper,
simpler and less obvious technology of ultra-sound, have led to widespread
misuse. Female feticide is not a practice confined to certain groups or regions.
This practice is now spreading across caste, class, geographical boundary and
rural-urban divide.
Indicators of Female Infanticide:
Infant Mortality Rate (IMR), the number of infant death in a year is the best
indicator to understand the incidence and intensity of the practice of
female infanticide. The general fact is that infant mortality rate of male is
higher than female. On the contrary, if IMR of female is higher than male, then
we can conclude that the practice is prevailing.
The period of infant death includes early neo-natal (0 – 7 days), late neo-natal (8
– 28 days) and post neo-natal (29 days – one year) periods. If the IMR gender
differential (IMR of male – IMR of female) is negative, it is an indicator to
understand the incidence of female infanticide. If the IMR gender differential
is higher, it is an indicator to understand the intensity of female infanticide. Thus,
the analysis of early neo-natal deaths and late neo-natal deaths and the gender
differential during this period will reveal the prevalence and intensity of female
infanticide.
From the data and field experience, female infants are normally killed before the
completion of thirty days (inclusive of early and late neo-natal period), after which
they normally escape from killing as the mother and generally the family
develops an attachment to the female child. Still one can argue that the post
neo-natal deaths of female infants can be equated to female infanticide as it is a
sheer neglect on the part of the parents in terms of girl child’s nutrition and health
care, ultimately resulting in elimination.
According to the PHC data for the year 2000, the IMR Gender Differential is
negative in 12 districts and the difference is higher in Salem District (-65.4). The
IMR gender differentials in two digits in Dharmapuri, Madurai, Namakkal, Salem,
Vellore are Theni Districts.
To illustrate, there are reported cases of 2568 in Tamil Nadu in the year 2000
according to the government data. Amongst them, only 16 cases are brought to
book in Dharmapuri alone when there are reported cases 688 female infanticide
in Dharmapuri Dist, 1218 in Salem, 102 in Namakkal, 199 in Theni 69 in Madurai
for the said period (PHC Data for the year 2000), which are black-listed for
having high incidence of female infanticide.
From five districts, the
practice/violation has spread to 13 districts - 75 in Vellore, 71 in Dindigul, 71 in
Erode, 29 in Thiruvannamalai, 16 in Trichy, 15 in Viluppuram, 8 in Ariyalur etc.
Indicators of Female Feticide:
The sex ratio at birth is the direct indicator of female feticide. 10 million girls
are born in India every year and almost 2 million female fetuses are aborted
annually after sex determination. But IMA gives a shocking note that 5 million
female fetuses are aborted annually. In Tamil Nadu, the sex ratio at birth is below
900 in many of the blocks and districts.
The US Department of Commerce has proved that the natural female to male
sex ratio at birth is 100:103 – i.e. 971 female children for every 1000 male
children, which is a biological sex ratio at birth. Thus a deviation from this ratio
will indicate sex selective abortion or female feticide.
According to the PHC data for the year 2000, 27 districts have sex ratio at birth
lower than the biological sex ratio. This shows that the practice of female feticide
is prevalent in almost all the districts.