The Arunachal Times

A country for the male

According to United Nations Population Fund (UNPF) in booklet on trends in sex ratio at birth and estimates of girls missing at birth in India, has said that some 1,600 girls a day have gone missing at birth in India from 2001-2007.

The main culprit has been the practice of pre-natal sex-selection which has resulted in approximately 6 lakh girls going missing at birth annually in the country.

The report further added that nearly 5% of female births in the country did not occur because of pre-natal sex-selection during 2001-2007.

As per the Sample Registration System SRS, the sex ratio at birth at the national level increased from 892 in 2000-2002 to 904 in 2006-2008. The trends and levels of sex ratio at birth in different states of the country vary.

The extent of variation among states is substantially large with a low sex ratio at birth of 836 girls per 1,000 boys in Punjab, 847 girls per 1,000 boys in Haryana, 862 girls per 1,000 boys in Jammu and Kashmir, and 870 girls per 1,000 boys in Rajasthan at one end. At the other end there is Kerala with 964 girls per 1,000 boys and Chhattisgarh with 975 girls per 1,000 boys.

The statistics suggest that more need to be done so that such disparity is ended. Apart from government agencies, nongovernmental organisations must also take it upon themselves to bring in change at all levels. In rural areas, where the problem is acute, panchayats should be sensitized. The government further need to come up with stringent laws to ensure that medical practitioners who are involved in such cases are not spared and given exemplary punishment. Unless government is ready to take on the society on this issue, we would continue to face the problem of imbalanced sex ratio which in the long run would have bad repercussions.