Missing Miss Punjab

[birkhalsa]

Missing Miss Punjab

In the year of the girl child, Punjab throws up new statistics to reaffirm its preference for boys. It records nearly a lakh female foeticides every year, writes Manraj Grewal

http://indianexpress.com/full_story.ppa?co...=41103&spf=true

EVERY year in Punjab about one lakh girls die before they are born. This is not a figment of an alarmist imagination but the level-headed calculation of a senior Punjab bureaucrat who has written a book on the subject.

Anurag Aggarwal has got this figure from simple mathematics. ‘‘With a gross birth rate of 3 per cent, Punjab should see 7.5 lakh births every year—3.5 lakh females and an equal number of males. But the census shows that one-fourth of baby girls go missing. This translates into 1 lakh girls a year.’’

Aggarwal is not alone in painting this dark picture. NGOs are demanding a fresh census to gauge the alarming slide in the juvenile (0-6 years) sex ratio. A study sponsored by the Bill Gates Foundation shows it’s down to 628 in the Khamano block of Fatehgarh Sahib. The sex ratio in Punjab is 874 females per 1000 males as against the national average of 933.But the health department is blissfully unaware. ‘‘We are taking steps under the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Technique (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act, but it takes time... the cases are in court,’’ says Dr B.P.S. Sandhu, director, PNDT.

The steps include registration of 47 cases and action against 32 in the last two years. But there’s been only one conviction t

o date—Dr Neelam Kohli of Ropar district was fined Rs 1,000 by the Kharar court last July. And the only arrest has been of a health worker last November.

The trophy that the health authorities love to parade is Surinder Kaur, a resident of Kale Majra in Fatehgarh Sahib district, who was the first woman arrested for aborting her female foetus two years ago.

‘‘The case is a blot on the department, Surinder was a victim herself, ’’ fumes Veena Kumari, coordinator, Human Rights Law Network. A visit to Kale Majra tells you why. The corner house with the tall gate hides the tale of three brothers with nine daughters, a son and six hectares between them. The lingering case is only intensifying their troubled existence.

LUDHIANA district, the hub of sonography centres and fertility clinics has notched up only four cases to date. In Amritsar all five diagnostic centres booked by the department are back in business. The worst-hit Fatehgarh Sahib district has booked only one diagnostic centre—Ludhiana Nursing Home at Khamano. It’s a no-frills place whose owner Dr Vivek Dharni has got his sonography machine sealed. ‘‘I wanted to get them off my back,’’ says the doctor who alleges the department officials were trying to milk him.

Most of the cases pertain to inadequate upkeep of records or non-registration of the sonography machine. Only a handful relate to sex-determination. The rap on the knuckles is almost always gentle, ranging from sealing the ultrasound and suspending the licence to cancelling the registration. But it’s only for a few months, even days.

Health Minister Ramesh Chander Dogra says more stringent steps are on the way. ‘‘We are at fault if the sex ratio is sliding,’’ he says, telling you about a fantastical plan to attach every sonography machine to the CMO or SMO’s office.

18 boys, 6 girls and a skewed sex ratio

NANOWAL (FATEHGARH SAHIB)

WHEN the slim road lined by shrubs with a sp

rinkling of pink blooms and brown dust completes a gentle ‘S’, you know you have reached Nanowal. A village rich in buffaloes and boys. Last year it celebrated the birth of 18 boys and six girls.

The falling sex ratio is no news here, for Nanowal is part of the Fatehgarh Sahib district, which recorded the country’s lowest sex ratio of 754 in the age group of 0-6 years in the 2001 census. A study conducted by the Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development (CRRID) for the Bill Gates Foundation in 2002, put the sex ratio (0-6) in the Khamano block (Nanowal is part of it) at a shocking 628.

Walk the brick-lined streets of the village for a day, and the mystery of the missing girl child begins to unfold.

The landed Jat Sikhs, who form 70 per cent of Nanowal, have almost given up on them—this year, all the six baby girls born in the village belonged to SCs, the Jats only had sons. It was the same the year before last when the village saw 11 baby boys and two baby girls.

Balwinder Kaur, wife of Sapinder Singh Sohi, the eldest of three brothers in a prosperous Jat Sikh family, tells you how it isn’t easy being the mother of daughter. ‘‘For a perfect family, a son is a must no matter what,’’ she murmurs. Daughters are dispensable. Which is why Sarabjit, her younger sister-in-law, who already has a baby boy is not planning any more children.

‘‘I feel one child is enough,’’ smiles the smartly-dressed woman. It’s to this pattern that Sarpanch Sukhbir Singh, a farmer-cum-commission agent attributes the plunging sex ratio. ‘‘Since the last eight years or so, people, especially the Jats, don’t want more than two children, and if the first one is a son, they stop there. Another son would only mean division of land. And a daughter would spell dowry.’’

Here the gender justifies the means. ‘‘Till a year ago, ultrasounds were commonplace, but not any more,’’ says Nirmal Kaur, the village midwife. Close to cities like Khanna, Ludhiana and Mandi Gobindgarh, they have no dear

th of choices. ‘‘Khamano, just 4 kms away, has two of them. Khanna, which is just 20 kms away, not only has the biggest grain market of Asia but also the highest number of ultrasound clinics,’’ says Dr Kesar Singh, senior research fellow at CRRID.

Here, ultrasound is synonymous with foeticide. Which is why no one admits to having had one. Only Balwinder, an SC who’s just delivered a boy after three daughters in the last seven years, admits to having asked for it but the doctors refused.

Then there is Simran, a city girl married to Avtar Singh, a computer professional. Her ultrasound is public knowledge, for the Khamano-based Ludhiana Clinic was raided soon afterward. ‘‘I’d just gone there to get the foetus checked,’’ she explains.

Dr Daljeet Kaur at the subsidiary health centre here, admits the unborn girls are being weeded out. ‘‘There is no other way you can explain this ratio,’’ she says.

But the village is united in its conspiracy of silence. Only a few like Harinder Singh, a dairy farmer who has a son, Shahnaz, dares to break it. ‘‘Madam, who doesn’t want a son? Besides daughters are an expensive affair.’’

[S1ngh]

This is very messed up news.. !

[Deep Singh]

wow. that is huge. we HAVE to do something guys.

[birkhalsa]

vwihgurU jI kw Kwlsw!

vwihgurU jI kI &iqh!!

Vishavjit Singh veerji has made a very thought provoking toon on this topic.

http://www.sikhtoons.com/AbortingGirls.html

[S1ngh]

Bkhalsa link image :

[Mukh Har Har Har Boleeia]

we gotta save our panjis brothers!!!!!