Swami Agnivesh (India)

Agnivesh’s commitments to women’s rights are both profound and effective. In 1987 he led a 18 day long 'padhyatra' (march on foot) from Delhi to Deorala in Rajasthan to protest against sati (the immolation of widows on their husband's funeral pyres) following a particularly notorious incident.. The Indian Parliament later enacted the Sati Prevention Act. Back in Delhi Agnivesh launched a campaign against female infanticide, which also resulted in legislation. Since 9/11 he has increased his efforts to maintain women as important conversation partners in diffusing global religious extremism. Website: www.swamiagnivesh.com

Indian Organizations Struggle to Remedy Frightening Sex Ratio

Rahul Kumar

OneWorld South Asia

09 September 2005

NEW DELHI, Sept 9 (OneWorld South Asia) - It is believed that the Chinese kill over a million girls every year in order to have a boy. It is also believed that Indians are about to overtake the Chinese in a few years. With an alarmingly adverse sex ratio of 933 women per thousand men, which is the lowest in south Asia, Indians have gained notoriety for selectively killing female fetuses.

Europe and American women enjoy a better sex ratio. Even the world’s poorest countries, including those in sub Saharan Africa, have a positive sex ratio of 103 women per 100 men.

India's sex ratio has been under a constant decline. In 1990 it was 945 and in 2001 it was 927. NGOs and women’s organizations have expressed their discomfort at the declining sex ratio because of its adverse effects on women – leading to a decline in their status and a rise in violence against them.

NGOs now plan to launch the 'March of a Million' in November 2005 to raise consciousness and create an environment against female feticide. Swami Agnivesh, Indian religious leader and child activist, plans to launch a countrywide movement that will seek to inculcate respect for women in traditional mindsets.

Agnivesh says that Indians have used religion to discriminate against women and deny them their rightful status in the society. He adds: "Earlier we had been fighting for the right kind of laws but now we have to fight to change the mindsets of people. The March of a Million will be launched around Diwali as this festival celebrates the birth of the girl child and we have to revive that respect for women."

Activists are up against great odds as a mix of technology and tradition has only sought to aggravate the problem. Prenatal diagnostic techniques and ultrasounds - which allow sex selection - have been used more for eliminating female fetuses than for better health care. Greedy doctors and medical companies have taken mobile ultrasounds to villages so that villagers can use advanced technology to get female fetuses aborted.

Noted activist and professor at the SNDT University, Mumbai, Vibhuti Patel says: "In the prosperous states of Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat and Maharashtra the female ratio has come down drastically in the last ten years because of the advent of technology. The New Reproductive Technologies, which are based on selection and rejection of the fetus, have played havoc with the sex ratio."

In Haryana, a north Indian agrarian state, the sex ratio has gone down to a dismal 640 women per 1,000 men in many areas. In many villages young men do not find women to marry which has resulted in polygamous marriages. Teenage suicide among young girls has gone up and so have incidents of violence against women.

Experts point out that female feticide has gone up in rich, urban areas. UNFPA expert Dhanashree says: "Falling sex ratio has become an urban, affluent and educated problem which is spreading fast to other areas. In the Indian capital New Delhi, the problem is highest in the affluent south Delhi areas."

Dhanashree elaborates that though preference for a son has always prevailed in the Indian society, the sex ratio decreased only after new technology came in. Other factors that have contributed to sex selection are the composition of and stress on a small family, issues related to dowry and the value of a girl child in a traditional society.

Experts point out that the two-child norm - that has been widely advertised in population control campaigns – also has led to an adverse sex ratio. Patel says: "Even in the south Indian states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, where literacy levels are very high, the sex ratio is against the girl child. The reason is that families prefer to have boys within those two children."

Sabu George from the Centre for Women's Development Studies (CWDS) pointed out the silent nod given to sex selection by multinational companies. George says: "Corporations benefit from female feticide. MNCs have made billions by selling ultrasound machines. The country has 15 companies selling these machines and there are many others, including those from Japan, waiting to enter the market."

Though India has made a law to deal with sex selection techniques, there have been problems in implementing it. The Preconception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994 provides for convicting doctors found eliminating fetuses selectively.

More than 200 doctors have been booked under the act but few convictions have taken place. Experts and activists point out that under the law doctors have been given powers to prosecute erring doctors. But doctors are not keen to take action against their own brethren.

Selective abortions have become so deeply entrenched in the Indian psyche that a popular soap on Indian television showed a young couple going in for a sex selection procedure. Women's organizations took up the issue and forced the producers of the serial to offer an apology including adding a few social development messages in subsequent episodes.

British NGO Oxfam has launched a south Asian alliance – We Can – to end violence against women in the region. The alliance is a coalition of over 400 organizations, including networks, and is trying to bridge the gap between the grassroots and the policy-level initiatives. FORCES which is a India-level network of nearly 3,000 organizations working on the rights of children is also working on curbing the declining sex ratio.

Experts predict that if the trend continues, and reaches the dangerous levels of Haryana, the Indian society will have to grapple with severe problems including spiraling crime, trafficking of women and related social problems.