Slaughter of our unborn daughters

Editorial
Slaughter of our unborn daughters
Every year in Nepal 50,000 unborn babies are aborted after parents find out through ultrasound scans that they are girls

FROM ISSUE #622 (14 SEPT 2012 - 20 SEPT 2012) | TABLE OF CONTENTS

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KUNDA DIXIT

In our obsession with dead-end politics, a news item last week on the shocking surge in female foeticide in Nepal went barely noticed. The investigative report by Ramji Dahal in our sister publication Himal Khabarpatrika delved into how the legalisation of abortion five years ago has led to the proliferation of ultrasound clinics across the country allowing parents to terminate pregnancies if they are girls.

The legislation was passed to give women a choice, to reduce Nepal's appalling maternal mortality rate, and to stop the practice of relatives accusing young daughters-in-law of abortion just to put them behind bars. The law has benefited tens of thousands of women across Nepal, and freed many innocent unjustly jailed women. But as abortion became easier, it has resulted in the appalling spread of female foeticide.

Activists estimate that 50,000 unborn babies are aborted in Nepal every year after parents find out through ultrasound scans that they are girls. This does not include abortions carried out without parents knowing the gender of their babies, half of which are likely also girls.

The slaughter of daughters is the result of deeply-rooted patriarchal values, a preference for boys in many Nepali cultures, a belief that sons are needed to perpetuate the family lineage, the need to pay dowry to marry daughters, and the reluctance to allow daughters to inherit property. This is largely an urban middle-class phenomenon across South Asia, and it is so entrenched that despite the spread of education and gender awareness, old habits die hard.
The discrimination against girls in Nepal now starts even before they are born. As they grow up, many girl children are stigmatised within families and by society: discouraged from going to school, fed last, not taken to hospitals if they fall sick, married off young, denied citizenship, abused or trafficked, sometimes by their own relatives.

This is why, while women live longer than men in most developed countries, the ratio of men to women in Nepal is skewed at 1.04 to 1. In his well-known research paper, Amartya Sen calculated that the preference for sons in China and South Asia had resulted in more than 100 million 'missing' women.

Surveys carried out in Nepal have shown that half of those who want sons visit clinics to determine the sex of the child. If it is a girl, the daughter-in-law then faces pressure to undergo an abortion and is tortured or even killed if she refuses.

� Twenty-one year-old Jyoti Harijan's husband poured kerosene on her and set her on fire after she gave birth to a daughter.
� Indu is the mother of two daughters, and was five months pregnant when her teacher husband Rohit beat her so badly she lost her baby. He then married another wife.
� Prerana and her husband are from well-to-do families in Kathmandu and graduates of an Australian university, but the mother of two daughters left her husband after being tortured and forced to abort four times after ultrasound scans showed the foetus to be female.
� A mother of two daughters in Sindhupalchok was pressured to take an ultrasound after she became pregnant and forced to abort, but the foetus turned out to be a boy. The hospital paid her Rs 100,000 and threatened her not to reveal the story. Some doctors tell mothers their babies are girls, even if they are not, just to lure them to abort and make more money.

These horror stories are becoming increasingly commonplace, and thrive because of the lax implementation of laws that ban sex selective abortions, and prohibit termination of pregnancies after more than 12 weeks. Weak regulation of hospitals, corruption, and the over-commercialisation of medical care are also to blame.

But the real culprit for Nepal's female genocide is patriarchy in all its deplorable manifestations. The only long-lasting remedy to such deep-seated injustice is to accelerate efforts to eliminate gender discrimination through education, better regulation, and law enforcement.

1. SS
can anyone verify the figures stated? or identify how they were learnt?

Posted on: 14 SEPT 2012 | 8:05 PM NST

2. Khusbu R
what a hard hitting title for a hard hitting editorial. it's so sad that we hardly care about such 'social' issues because we have been in a political crisis for the past 16 years. we are forever occupied with half-day bandas, the selection of a Police chief, consensus among the top three (goondas). but who cares about these girls right? let them die, we don't need them?

I am tempted to label all the families who kill female babies in the womb as sick, disgusting people. But I tell myself that I can't be judgmental while sitting in the comforts of my room behind a computer. there must be some sort of twisted logic behind these murders right? Or is it simply a deep hatred of the female kind?

Posted on: 14 SEPT 2012 | 9:52 PM NST

3. wilko
what an extremely sad and bad practice. And even more sad is that this female foetal homicide practice is not only happening among uneducated, poor people, but also among educated middle-class.

It shows lack of good sense that they value girls less than boys. But in the long term, they will discover the new problem in Nepal. At the time these small boys reach marrying age, there will be lack of sufficient girls, and the situation may even turn around. Boys will have to pay then a big dowery to the family of the girl, and many boys will not be able to find a wife. This may lead to large social unrest. And since the same bad practice is happening in India and China, there are also no chances to solve this problem with girls from neighbouring countries.

but even apart from this, it is a sick practice to discriminate females and to even start such homicide. I hope this topic can get more attention in Nepal, and that people will start to realize how bad it is.

Posted on: 15 SEPT 2012 | 2:06 PM NST