India's Missing Girls

[monster]

A recent series of article from the BBC following the census in India reveals a disturbing fall in the female population in the last 10 years, and over the last 30 years, since pre-natal sex-determination tests became widely available.

KASHMIR'S WORST DISTRICTS
Srinagar 869 (928)
Anantnag 832 (977)
Budgam 832 (1004)
Ganderbal 863 (1014 )
Kupwara 854 (1021)
Shopian 883 (1011)
Pulwama 836 (1046)
Numbers of girls for every 1,000 boys aged 0-6. Figures in brackets are from 2001

The figures are particularly disturbing over the last 10 years because the goverment has introduced many schemes they thought would help girls becomed more valued and so saved. But the figures show that they are not working. One of the articles discusses how men in some regions are now paying for brides rather than receiving a dowry, and yet the practiced of female feticide and infanticide is obviously still continuing, although the out-of-practice statitician in me notes that the region where brides are being imported (Haryana) has a slight improvement in the girl to boy ratio over the last 10 years (from approx 820 to approx 830 girls per 1,000 boys). Not enough to suggest that the girl-killing has stopped. Not even enough to suggest that it will all be alright in the end.

It makes me very sad. And I question whether other countries should/could step in?


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13264301
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13385727
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13331808

[wolf]

Fewer Indian Women = Fewer Indians being born = Fewer Call/Programming Centers = Tech jobs coming back to the U.S.

We benefit in the long run.

(I actually think that the practice of using abortion for sex selection is abhorrent, and yes, something needs to be done, but I've not the vaguest idea of what a proper approach would be.)

[DanaC]

Ithink there's a role for internationalists in this kind of thing, but not quite sure what that should be. As a bedrock of support for those people in those countries who are trying to change things, I guess.

It'll only really change with a shift in attitude amongst ordinary people, and that shift in attitude probably won't even begin to happen until the economic disadvantages of bearing daughters has been thoroughly overturned. But these are seizmic cultural shifts which will come from social and economic change and most likely across a couple of generations.

[Sundae]

I haven't had a chance to read the articles yet - and I will - but can the drop in the female population really have any correlation with pre-natal sex-determination tests? The vast majority of Indians could never afford these, certainly not 30 years ago. So the effect of these tests can only have a very small impact, surely? On a par with Indians who have access to birth control and abortion.

I'm not denying the overall figures of course.
And I think it's very sad.
But as with China I think countries have to be left to work these things out for themselves.
At some point they will reach crisis point and women will simply have to be valued again, for their sheer scarcity. How can we really change views from the outside? Subtly, drip by drip, child by child. I would not want a Muslim association picketing termination wards in the UK. I know that's religion and not culture, but the end result is the same.

If we're going to start, lets start with eradicating female circumcision.
That has only a minor effect on the growth of population - there are still plenty of girls around to mutilate.

[BigV]

there is a correlation Sundae (I heard the story on the radio). In one case a woman is suing/divorciing her husband for forcing her to take an ILLEGAL prenatal sex determination test, and the subsequent abortion of the female fetus. Also there is an acknowledgment of widespread "deaths" of female liveborn infants.

fucking sucks.

[Sundae]

Of course - I didn't take into account the vast number of medically qualified Indians who need to turn their hand to illegal practice, given the still prevalent neccessity of money to buy jobs. So they qualify but don't have the family connections or hard cash to pay bribes - what better way to earn money than set up "backstreet" clinics to fulfil the needs of the growing middle class.

Especially if the mother's extended family is involved to pay for the test/ procedure.

The only brake I will apply is that the articles deliberately use number on the 1000s to make the fugures as large as possible. If you reduce them to 8.83 girls for every 10 boys, it shows that over 80% of women either do not seek pre-natal tests, or at least do not commit infanticide after they have given birth to a girl.

The really sad thing for me came in the final article.
Where women are scarce they are indeed prized. But only in the way that cattle are.
Their families sell them into lives completely unsuitable for their upbringing and their new husbands show such little respect that they will even change their name if they can't pronounce it (okay - that was one case, but it doesn't surprise me).

Perhaps the sexual revolution will have to wait at least one more generation.
Perhaps these mothers will value their daughters more.

[Clodfobble]

The daughters will not be valued until the mothers themselves are valued first. That is, it's not about keeping the girl babies alive, it's about ensuring that adult women can be powerful and successful and independent, thus removing the burden of being a woman.

[wolf]

I remember 10 years ago or more seeing a piece of 60 Minutes or one of those types of shows of storefront Ultrasound "clinics" in India ... after your ultrasound you could go to another room (or another storefront, I forget which) to have the "malformed" (i.e., female) fetus aborted.

[monster]

What if the rest of the world -we, the consumers- starting hanging up on Indian call center workers only if they were male.....?

[monster]

Originally Posted by Sundae

The only brake I will apply is that the articles deliberately use number on the 1000s to make the fugures as large as possible. If you reduce them to 8.83 girls for every 10 boys, it shows that over 80% of women either do not seek pre-natal tests, or at least do not commit infanticide after they have given birth to a girl

Percentages do not change whether you give figures in the 10s, 100s or 1000s. 1,000s is the norm for reporting population figures, I think. I had thought that more girls were born than boys, but Wikipedia reports that the current ratio is 101 boys to 100 girls -although this may be skewed by the prevalence of sex-selective abortion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_ratio

This illustration interested me, and I think backs up my feeling that in general, more girls are born than boys. So I'm goin to reverse your stat and point out that at least 1, more like 2 in 10 girls were killed because of their gender. So of the Brit Women on the cellar, one of us would be gone. And probably also one of the Aussie women. It's a huge, extremely significant difference.



Map indicating the human sex ratio by country.
PINK Countries with more females than males.
GREEN Countries with the same number of males and females.
BLUE Countries with more males than females.

[DanaC]

I can't recall where I got this from, so hopefully I'm not too far of the mark, but whilst doing some stuff on population booms in the 18th century, I came across some statistics for then and now which suggested that more boys are born than girls, but that girls are more robust. In other words, if the cultural factors that lead to high female infant mortality (such as valuing a female child less and therefore feeding her less, being less concerned generally, getting medical help later, and outright infanticide) were removed, female babies had a higher chance of survival past 1st birthday than male babies. This was why, even though female children in the 18th century (for example) were regarded less and were subject to the specific factors just mentioned, they still represented a small majority (51% I think) of surviving children.


Apparently though, later births are more likely to be female, so those figures are changing in countries where women are leaving it until later in life to have babies.


[eta] just looked at your map Monster: am wondering if there's any correlation with age of the mother at first birth. Western countries, for example, often leave childbirth until much later in life.

[Rhianne]

Originally Posted by monster

So of the Brit Women on the cellar, one of us would be gone. And probably also one of the Aussie women.

Do we get to choose?

It might be me actually, I'm British of course but my mother was born in pre-partition India, actually Pakistan now, but then that was *cough* years ago.

[DanaC]

Yeah. My Dad was born in pre-partition India.

[ZenGum]

You two do realise that you're cousins, don't you?

[Trilby]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

You two do realise that you're cousins, don't you?

Forget that they're cousins!

I want to know where is the MOONSTONE?