FEMALE INFANTICIDE

INTRODUCTION

Female infanticide is the intentional killing of baby girls due to the preference for male babies and from the low value associated with the birth of females.’ These practices arise in areas where cultural norms value male children over female children.

CAUSES OF FEMALE INFANTICIDE

This anti-female bias is by no means limited to poor families. Much of the discrimination is to do with cultural beliefs and social norms. These norms themselves must be challenged if this practice is to stop. The practice of female de-selection in India could be attributed to socio-economic reasons. Studies in India have indicated three factors of female de-selection in India, which are economic utility, sociocultural utility, and religious functions.The factor as to economic utility is that studies indicate that sons are more likely than daughters to provide family farm labor or provide in or for a family business, earn wages, and give old-age support for parents.

Upon marriage, a son makes a daughter-in-law an addition and asset to the family providing additional assistance in household work and brings an economic reward through dowry payments, while daughters get married off and merit an economic penalty through dowry charges. The sociocultural utility factor of female de-selection is that, as in China, in India’s patrilineal and patriarchal system of families is that having at least one son is mandatory in order to continue the familial line, and many sons constitute additional status to families.

The final factor of female de-selection is the religious functions that only sons are allowed to provide, based on Hindu tradition, which mandate that sons are mandatory in order to kindle the funeral pyre of their late parents and to assist in the soul salvation.

EFFECTS OF FEMALE INFANTICIDE

The major effect of female infanticide is that it is leading to an imbalance in the sex ratio which is increasing. The number of female children per male child has decreased from 972/1000 to 929/1000 in 1991 and 914 per 1000 boys in 2011 census and it is still decreasing.  Female infanticide is causing a stiff decrease in the female’s population which is a great concern. The child sex ratio is not uniform across the states in India. The states like Haryana, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh, the ratio has declined to 900 girls per 1000 boys. There are more number of boys than that of girls due to which the difficulty of finding girls for marriage is increasing and this in turn is becoming one of the major causes of female trafficking in India. In areas like Haryana the females are being sold illegally from areas like west Bengal and Assam. This situation is further creating social deprivation for girls.

Talking about social effects, female foeticide pressurises women (by their own families) to have a son as a child and they are being subjected to mental, and physical torture and abandonment as well when she refuses to have sex determination test. Female infanticide thus in a way is augmenting social maltreatment of women. The gender imbalance caused due to infanticide is demonstrating patriarchal norms of the society even more strongly and women being afraid of the discrimination, ill-treatment that her girl would be facing are supporting the idea of pre natal determination of sex.  The crime rate against women are increasing and rape, abduction, trafficking, sexual exploitation are some of the major crimes women are facing right now and which is a matter of great lookout.

LAWS AND POLICIES OF THE GOVERNMENT

Understanding the earnestness of the situation and due to above mentioned effects various laws and policies are passed in this regard. Government passed its first law – ‘Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act 1971’, that made abortion legal in almost all states across the country, subject to certain conditions like – medical health of the mother and rape. But as there are certain loopholes in this Act as due to the advancement in technologies there are chances of people misusing it majorly. In 1980s sex diagnosis technologies were made available which led to massive abuse and an increase in number of female foeticide cases. Due to which Government passed ‘Pre Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act’ in 1994. The law was amended in 2004 and is now known as ‘Pre-Conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) (PCPNDT) Act.

A law named ‘Female Infanticide Prevention Act 1870 was passed in British India to prevent Female infanticide in India. Some of the other Acts passed for the controlling this are – ‘Dowry Prohibition Act 1961’, Immoral Traffic Prevention Act 1986, ‘Ban on Ultrasound testing 1996’ and many more.  In Indian constitution and Indian Penal Code also there are certain provisions regarding the same. Article 21 of the constitution talks about right to life thereby giving certain rights to a pre born child as well. Section 312 read with Medical termination of Pregnancy Act,  imposes certain restrictions limiting the time of 20 weeks in every abortion other than the ones pertaining to medical conditions. Sections 312- 316 of the IPC 1860 deals with miscarriage where section 312- deals with causing miscarriage, Section 313- talks about causing miscarriage without women’s consent, Section 314 with death caused by an act with intent to cause miscarriage, Section 315 -Act done with intent to prevent child being born alive or to cause it to die after birth and Section 316 talks about ‘Causing death of quick unborn child by act amounting to culpable homicide.

CONCLUSION

India has always been a male dominant country and since ages women were persecuted towards the patriarchal norms. But now women are fighting back these notions of the society and are being ahead in every filed. The policies initiated by the government and laws made to fortify and escalate the women are becoming backbone of the women. But still there is a lot that is needed to be done to curb such social evils in India from the roots.

But the laws and government are not enough to eradicate these evil practices; this won’t stop unless we choose to stop it. We need to educate people, we need to create social awareness at our level and we should support girls so that they would be empowered and be independent. Women are pride of our country. Our culture considered women as Shakti, as wealth and therefore the onus is on us to save the girl and prevent a taboo in our culture. We should remember ‘Don’t kill a girl in the womb when she can bring the country to gloom’.