PROJECT LAUNCH EVENT

"Meri Shakti Meri Beti" (My Strength My Daughter)

Save the Girl Child: Achieving Gender Equality by Addressing Sex Selection

Female foeticide is an extreme manifestation of violence against women where female fetuses are selectively aborted after pre-natal sex determination, thereby avoiding the birth of girls. As a result, between 35 and 40 million girls and women are missing from the Indian population. In some parts of the country, the sex ratio of girls to boys has dropped to less than 800:1,000 to which The United Nations has expressed serious concern.
 

The sex ratio has altered consistently in favour of boys since the beginning of the 20th century and the effect has been most pronounced in the states of Punjab, Haryana and Delhi. It was in these states that private foetal sex determination clinics were first established and the practice of selective abortion became popular over the years. Worryingly, the trend is far stronger in urban rather than rural areas, and among literate rather than illiterate women, exploding the myth that growing affluence and spread of basic education alone will result in the erosion of gender bias.