February 18, 2006
Female Feoticide Rates Increase in Punjab
Outlook (India) looks at rising female feoticide in the province of Punjab:
Dhanduha's [a village in Punjab's Nawanshahr district] register shows that of the seven babies born in the last six months, there were six boys and just one girl. In the last one year, against 12 boys only three girls were born, and in the last five years, 34 baby boys were born as against only 18 girls. A sex ratio of just 529:1000!But it's not fair to point fingers at Dhanduha. Everyone in the district knows of Nai Majara, the village where an on-the-spot survey conducted by deputy commissioner Krishan Kumar a month ago, of children in the 0-1 age group, came up with a ratio of 437:1000. A local NGO staged an instant demonstration in the village but its sarpanch Satnam Singh wrings his hands in despair. "It's such a shame for our village, but what can I do? This happens everywhere." Sure it does. And much more than anyone previously imagined.
Posted by Robin Varghese at 05:13 PM | Permalink
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Comments
It's such a shame that such incidents continue to happen. It's the result of a mindset that needs to be drastically changed but sadly, will take many more years!
Anyhow, good post!!
Posted by: SA | Feb 18, 2006 5:33:56 PM
This is incredibly dangerous. Nature has a reason that women are usually 53% of the population. One epidemic will wipe this culture out, and without the girls, they won't be able to recover. Also, so few women means that the ones that are born are in extreme danger of sexual abuse. Who are these men going to marry?
Posted by: Morgaine Swann | Feb 18, 2006 11:22:28 PM
Has anyone figured out how much of the sex ratio is due to disease and how much to female infanticide? I know there was a paper a few years ago about disease causing more boys to be born, but it didn't claim to account for all the effects, and some of the assumptions seemed dubious anyway.
Posted by: Hektor Bim | Feb 19, 2006 9:54:39 AM
Much of the work on missing women was done by Amartya Sen in a series of papers in the late 1980s. He estimated 100 million missing women.
Gender selective abortions is one of the factors; others include differential access to heath care, nutrition, and other resources. (The references are easy enough to find, much of which was in British Medical Journal and World Development Reports). Since then, people have refined estimation techniques, which while shifting the numbers (often upwards) have confirmed the conclusions. You can find the references.
I haven't heard of the disease that selects for gender. But I'm sure the effects of that are easy to estimate, and are probably around somewhere.
Posted by: Robin | Feb 19, 2006 2:41:45 PM
Found the reference here:
Hepatitis B apparently causes more boys to be born than girls.
Posted by: Hektor Bim | Feb 19, 2006 11:06:08 PM
Sorry, link didn't post
Do a search in NY Times database for Sen and hepatitis B.
Posted by: Hektor Bim | Feb 19, 2006 11:07:14 PM
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