WATERING THE NEIGHBOUR'S GARDEN: THE GROWING - CICRED

Discrimination from Conception to Childhood:
A Study of Girl Children in Rural Haryana, India
1. Introduction
Sutapa AGRAWAL, Sayeed UNISA 1
The advent of sex selection technologies in India has added a new
dimension to discriminatory practices against girls. Studies indicate that
a significant share of female foetuses are being aborted, creating an
imbalance in child sex ratio in this country. 2 Currently, sex-selective
abortion (SSA) accounts for roughly 11 percent of late-term, unsafe
abortions in India (Johnston, 2002). However SSA is not the result of
an unintended or unwanted pregnancy. Indeed, it is the gendered
preference for a certain type of pregnancy that guides the decision to
undergo sex-selective abortion (Mallik, 2002). According to the second
National Family Health Survey (IIPS, 2000) conducted in 1998-99, the
sex ratio at birth for the six-year period preceding the survey is of
114.9 males per 100 females, much higher than that of countries outside
Asia. The gender composition of deceased children, who were
born during the seven years preceding the survey, shows that there
were 1.3 times more girls than boys among non surviving children.
Again, a comparison of the sex ratio at birth for the period 1996-98
which stands at 122.2 compared to 110.7 for the period 1992-95,
suggests that the practice of sex-selective abortion has grown after
1995 despite the implementation, in 1994, of the Pre-Natal Diagnostic
Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act which prohibits
1 We are thankful to anonymous reviewers. Thanks are due to Praween K. Agrawal
for useful comments on an earlier draft. Support for the fieldwork by the Parkes
Foundation Small Grant Fund, Department of Biological Anthropology, Cambridge
University, U.K. is gratefully acknowledged.
2 See for instance Unisa et al. (2007), Nanda (2006, Sen (2003) and Bose (2001). Child
sex ratio defined here is the number of male children per 100 female children below
the age of 7. See also in this volume the chapter by Arokiasamy on recent trends and
regional differentials.