By

Roopa Bakshi

The sex-ratio within the age-group 0 -6 years is a revealing indicator of how societies/countries treat their girls/women, and the esteem they hold them in. Most societies in the industrialized world have a healthy 0-6 child ratio i.e. there are roughly the same number of girls and boys in the 0 – 6 age-group. In India however, the rapidly declining sex-ratios are turning into a demographic nightmare of frightening proportions.

The sex-ratio in India within the age-group 0-6 years has plunged from 976 girls for every 1000 boys in 1961 to 927 girls for every 1000 boys in 2001. This is only the national average for India. There are areas within the country where the ratio has dropped to well below 900. The ratios for some of the states are: Himachal Pradesh 896, Punjab 798, Chandigarh 845, Uttaranchal 908, Haryana 819, Delhi 818, Rajasthan 909, and Gujarat 883. These are not the most economically backward areas of the country. On the contrary, Punjab, with the lowest 0 – 6 sex-ratio in the country, is the most economically prosperous state of India. Delhi, the national capital region of India, has the second-lowest 0- 6 sex-ratio. In fact, some of the poorest states have a sex-ratio well above the national average.

Female infanticide and now, increasingly, female foeticide have seen a rise in recent decades. Sex-selective abortions have been greatly facilitated by the misuse of diagnostic procedures such as amniocentesis that can determine the sex of the foetus. It is estimated that approximately 2 million female foetuses have been aborted each year in the recent past. Urban areas, which have such services available, also have a population that can afford such tests. In rural areas, however, in the absence of sophisticated medical procedures, female babies are at times killed by asphyxiation or just left to die. Added to this is the general neglect of the girl child, especially during early childhood diseases, which takes its own death toll. Those girls who survive early childhood are invariably malnourished and anaemic in regions that have a declining sex-ratio. More girls are child laborers than boys – and more girls are trafficked for sexual exploitation.

Centuries of social preference for male child and the high value placed on them in terms of productivity and inheritance in a society that is strongly patrilineal, have today resulted in a demographic scenario that is almost irreversible. The system of dowry further aggravates the problem. There are a substantial number of people in India living below the poverty line who can ill-afford a dowry for their daughter at the time of her marriage, without getting into an eternal debt-trap. Killing a female baby is an easier option. The poor cannot afford daughters and the rich can afford to not have them. How many females has India lost in the last 40 years – 50 million or more – does anyone care?