Dear members of End-violence, We would like to raise the issue of forced female foeticide, and initiatives we are taking to prevent doing away with daughters in India.
Women are worshipped and revered in every form in India. For the women, these female goddesses symbolize courage & strength in the form of "Shakti", "Durga", "Kali", Vindhyavasini", "Saptshringhi", "Vaishnodevi" who crushed demons, asuras, rakshas and all form of evil in the world to usher harmony in the universe. There is also "Saraswati" the goddess of learning & fine arts. And she is also "Mahalaxmi" the goddess of wealth and prosperity who is worshipped every day. Besides religious inclinations; women have always been accorded a highly revered status in every relationship -- that of the mother, sister and wife -- in the Indian society. Some states in the country follow a matriarchical system whereby all family decisions must have the acceptance of the women of the house who also enjoy property inheritance rights. The divorce rates have been one of the lowest in the world-over -- 97-98% marriages survive life-long in India. Furthermore, women have been increasingly highest positions in the political as well as in the corporate and business world. India enjoyed for the first time in the world the impressive record of electing a woman Prime Minister for several years in a row. Mrs. Indira Gandhi gave India a firm leadership for many years; and currently the Indian parliament is considering reserving over 40% elected posts for the women. Yet these progressive developments cannot hide one of the worst impending "gender" crises India is facing -- the rapid depletion of women's population. The official census of the Govt. of India has revealed a sharp decline in the sex ratio of children in the 0-6 age group in the 10 years since the last census (from 945 to 927 females per 1000 males) Occurring as it did during a decade that witnessed a marginal improvement in the skewed ratio of females to males in the adult Indian population (from 927 to 933:1000), the sudden fall in the number of girls in the youngest age group is believed to be proof of the increased incidence of sex selective abortions -- or female foeticide -- following sex determination through the abuse of otherwise valuable medical technologies such as ultrasound scanning and amniocentesis. The most dramatic drop in the child sex ratio has taken place in the states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra where clinics specializing in sex determination and sex-selective abortions are known to have been in existence for at least a couple of decades. However, such clinics have now mushroomed all over the country. In places where female infanticide was a customary practice, female foeticide come in as a deadly substitute that is less traumatic, more convenient and equally effective. If amniocentesis was the first medical technology to be widely abused for the purpose in recent years; ultrasound scanning has emerged as a simpler and more popular alternative. There is little doubt that in India the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act 1994, which came into being in India thanks mainly to pressure from gender and health activists and supposed to have come into force from January 1996, has not been very effective. The facts revealed by the census speak for themselves. While the adult sex ratio in one of the most affected states Karnataka rose from 960 in 1991 to 964 in 2001; the child sex ratio fell from 960 in 1991 to 949 in 2001. Sadly, the medical community as well as the equipment manufacturers are often governed by commercial considerations and greed. The fact that ultra-sound scan machines are proliferating in several hundred small towns across the country points to the fact that they are being used for sex determination. The sex-selective abortions are also highly profitable for the medical community, and they get any legal or punitive action stymied through political pressure as well as by bribing the local police authorities and law enforcement agencies. Although Datamation supports women's right to choose an abortion based on her personal situation and decisions, we are deeply concerned about the rise in female foeticide, which is linked to cultural views that devalue women and girls. We believe forced female foeticide is an act of violence against women, who often have no choice because she is caught in so much of pressure from all sides. It is also a human rights issue; and we wish to see a girl child getting a rightful place in our society. If the girl-child is not allowed to blossom and grow in India in significantly large numbers, as must be the case, our civilization stands at great peril. As a result, Datamation on its own voluntary initiative has launched a major (information and communication technology) ICT based program to help prevent occurrence of female foeticide in India. Information Technology has changed the communications paradigm forever. No longer it is difficult to reach a large number of people more or less at the same time; and, as well, to enable them to respond, interact as well as obtain a copy of the information within a low-cost. The Health and Family Welfare Department, Govt. of India as well as media and related agencies have managed to create a high degree of awareness as well as concern over female foeticide in the country. ICTs apart from sensitizing people against this heinous crime can also play a highly interventionist role by pro-actively pursuing cases against erring doctors, booking them under the law of the land as well as helping people in general change their opinion about the value of "a girl child". In the absence of ICTs; other communications medium be it print or electronic are very expensive. Other media also lack mass-scale reach and penetration that ICTs can ensure within a very low cost and that too at an unprecedented speed. Some tools helping the Govt. of India accomplish their cherished goal of all-together stopping female foeticides set up by Datamation are: I. Web site dedicated for Female Foeticide : This site <www.indiafemalefoeticide.org> not only covers the regulatory aspects -- The Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994; Medical Council of India's code of conduct -- but also includes a complaint lodging process in the best tradition of e-governance. The complaint lodging process protects the identity of the complainant; yet provide an effective vehicle for booking a doctor, maternity home, ultra-sound clinic or radiology clinic that is promoting or supporting the use of female foeticide. The complaints are retrieved into a database format at Datamation from where they are handed over to the competent authority to be redressed. The response is also expected to be sent back to Datamation to enable updating of the database within a month's time; failing which an automatic reminder gets published for the competent authority to act upon the female foeticide complaints received. The tracking process is separate for the medical community and for the people in general. The complaints pertaining to the families who have indulged in the crime are forwarded to the regional voluntary groups proposed to be set up for the management of these complaints by the Govt. and the competent authorities. The site is being publicized in the mass media as well as in other communication channels deployed by institutions supporting this issue. The site in the future will be hyper-linked to other gender as well as feminist web-sites across the country-such as Nanhi Kali, Nari Raksha Samiti, Nari Dakshta Samiti etc. so that the traffic to the site can increase substantially as well as individual complaints can be tracked easily. Datamation's team also proposes to work interactively with the concerned authorities to ensure that the complaints are tracked very closely as well as the case reaches a logical conclusion. The site will also have in the future very well-defined sections on: Pledge to stop female foeticide : A community of supporters will be created via web-site. The contact details of the supporters will be distributed to the grass root voluntary groups so that these resources may be mobilized for any counseling or fieldwork as "volunteers" Donations for capacity-building : All those who support the cause of female foeticide may be allowed donate from the web-site. The donations will be sought for the respective women's group operating in that state or for Datamation Foundation; for a number of issues such as capacity building as well as assistance in the implementation of the legal actions against the medical community. II. Using ICTs for capacity building of Women's groups involved in field work and counseling : Datamation has proposed to the Govt. of India setting up of an online complaint tracking and recording system at select Women's groups who would be involved in the field counseling as well as in curbing female foeticide. The groups would be provided with : --a Pentium PC --Internet access supported with modem etc. --tailor-made software designed to facilitate lodging as well as tracking of complaints --status updating post counseling action; as well as future steps Some voluntary groups recommended by us for the deployment of ICT based pilots are : -- Nanhi Kali run by Mahindra Foundation and based in Bombay is doing pioneering work in the area of protecting the interest of the girl child may be requested to look after the capacity building and counseling work on a pilot basis in the state of Maharashtra specifically in Bombay. -- Nari Raksha Samiti supported by Delhi Administration has been in existence for the last 50 years and supports gender issues such as anti-dowry campaigns, female trafficking, violence against women; may be requested to handle a pilot project in Delhi and Western UP, Haryana involving capacity building with the usage of ICTs as well as in counseling. Appropriate women's groups from other states would also be involved in this exercise. III. Email broadcasting to consumers about female foeticide : Datamation has been continuously disseminating emails to citizens having Internet access. E-Pledges as well as E-Donations will be facilitated through Email broadcasting. Initial target is to reach over 3 million households by the end of first quarter 2002 using Email broadcast. The emails would also have a component of response management which would be integrated with the web-site as well. IV. Email broadcast to the Doctors/Medical Community in general about female foeticide : It is intended to handle mass-scale email broadcasts to the Doctors as well as to the Medical community. The target for reaching out to this segment is over 300,000 Doctors, Hospitals, Ultra-sound clinics, Radiologists over next 3-4 months. Indeed a war needs to be waged against the female foeticide in India. Fully understanding that an evil such as female foeticide cannot be addressed in isolation alone, we are also closely examining related social problems such as dowry, women's under-employment and exploitation in the society, low education standards for the girl child, as well as high school dropouts amongst the girls, early marriages, arranged marriage system. It is our endeavour to develop sustainable development models for each of the above listed social problems in India so that these have an impact on improving the ratio of the females in the Indian society. Hopefully in the future a girl child may find more and more acceptance in the Indian homes !! Best regards, Mrs. Sarita Sharma & Mr. Chetan Sharma Datamation Foundation 361 Patparganj Industrial Area Delhi-110 092 (India) www.datamationindia.com Ph# 91-11-2167230/2169162/2167973/2168017 Email : [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***End-violence is sponsored by UNIFEM and receives generous support from ICAP*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe end-violence OR type: unsubscribe end-violence Archives of previous End-violence messages can be found at: http://www.edc.org/GLG/end-violence/hypermail/
