India's 'missing girls'
She is an autistic girl; on an empty metal road beside Aduria forest playing with her younger sister who takes care of her after school hour and during school holiday
India’s 2011 census shows a serious decline in the number of girls under the age of seven. Across India there were 945 girls per 1,000 boys in the 1991 census, 927 in 2001 and now 914 (in 2011); in some areas this can be as low as 861. Rising incomes only seem to accelerate the selective abortion of girl foetuses (female foeticide).
More disturbingly, the latest annual health survey data pointed out that in nine most populous north-Indian states, girls are disappearing not so much from foeticide as from infanticide which reflected in the substantial fall in the gender ratio in the 0-4 age group in several districts across nine states. While foeticide is driven mainly by the fear of high wedding and dowry costs, it is exacerbated by the preference for sons as family sizes shrink.
Now the skewed gender ratio has given rise to a system of bride-buying in the affected states: once trafficked or purchased they can be exploited, denied basic rights, put to work as maids and, in many cases, abandoned. Marriage to "imported brides" makes caste, language and culture immaterial as long as money is paid to the girl's family and a male child is born. Most of them come from poverty-ridden villages of east-Indian states of Assam, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar and Orissa, and are sold because their families need the money.
India urgently needs a proper and more focused series of initiatives if it is to transform the status of its women.
Read More: gu.com/p/3z9d2/sbl
India's 'missing girls'
She is an autistic girl; on an empty metal road beside Aduria forest playing with her younger sister who takes care of her after school hour and during school holiday
India’s 2011 census shows a serious decline in the number of girls under the age of seven. Across India there were 945 girls per 1,000 boys in the 1991 census, 927 in 2001 and now 914 (in 2011); in some areas this can be as low as 861. Rising incomes only seem to accelerate the selective abortion of girl foetuses (female foeticide).
More disturbingly, the latest annual health survey data pointed out that in nine most populous north-Indian states, girls are disappearing not so much from foeticide as from infanticide which reflected in the substantial fall in the gender ratio in the 0-4 age group in several districts across nine states. While foeticide is driven mainly by the fear of high wedding and dowry costs, it is exacerbated by the preference for sons as family sizes shrink.
Now the skewed gender ratio has given rise to a system of bride-buying in the affected states: once trafficked or purchased they can be exploited, denied basic rights, put to work as maids and, in many cases, abandoned. Marriage to "imported brides" makes caste, language and culture immaterial as long as money is paid to the girl's family and a male child is born. Most of them come from poverty-ridden villages of east-Indian states of Assam, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar and Orissa, and are sold because their families need the money.
India urgently needs a proper and more focused series of initiatives if it is to transform the status of its women.
Read More: gu.com/p/3z9d2/sbl