1) Sex-selective abortion in India has led to a severe decline in the sex ratio, with some areas having fewer than 800 girls for every 1,000 boys. 2) The trend is stronger among urban, literate families and has continued despite laws banning sex determination tests and increasing punishments. 3) An estimated 113-200 million women are "missing" globally due to factors like sex-selective abortion, neglect, and violence against women. India accounts for over 50 million of these missing women.

1. SocialGe graphic
Woman is the companion of man, gifted with equal
mental capacities. She has the right to participate in
very minutest detail in the activities of man and she
has an equal right of freedom and liberty with him.
----- M K Gandhi, 1933

2. Since the late 1970s when the technology for sex determination first came
into being, sex selective abortion has unleashed a saga of horror in India.

3. In some parts of the country, the sex ratio of girls to boys has dropped to less than 800:1,000.
It's alarming that even liberal states like those in the northeast have taken to disposing of girls.

4. Worryingly, the trend
is far stronger in urban
rather than rural
areas, and among
literate rather than
illiterate women,
exploding the myth
that growing affluence
and spread of basic
education alone will
result in the erosion of
gender bias.

5. Over the years, laws
have been made stricter
and the punishment too
is more stringent now.
But since many people
manage to evade
punishment, others too
feel inclined to take the
risk. Just look at the way
sex-determination tests
go on despite a stiff ban
on them. The United
Nations has expressed
serious concern about
the situation.

6. According to one United Nations estimate, 113 to 200 million women are “demographically
missing” from the world today. That is to say, there should be 113 to 200 million more
women walking the earth, who aren’t. By that same estimate, 1.5 to 3 million women and
girls lose their lives every year because of gender-based neglect or gender-based violence
and Sexual Violence in Conflict.

7. India alone accounts for more
than 50 million of the women
who are “missing” due to female
foeticide - the sex-selective
abortion of girls, dowry death,
gender-based neglect and all
forms of violence against
women.
We can point a finger at poverty.
But poverty alone does not
result in these girls and women’s
deaths and suffering; the blame
also falls on the social system
and attitudes of the societies.

8. The decline in the sex ratio and the millions of Missing Women are indicators of the feudal
patriarchal resurgence. Violence against women has gone public – whether it is dowry
murders, the practice of female genital mutilation, honour killings, sex selective abortions
or death sentences awarded to young lovers from different communities by caste councils,
rapes and killings in communal and caste violence, it is only women’s and human rights
groups who are protesting – the public and institutional response to these trends is very
minimal.

9. Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand
of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action --
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
------ Rabindranath Tagore

10. Unite To End Violence Against Women and girls!
Say No To Sex Selection and Female Foeticide!
Educate & Empowered Women for a Happy Future !
We are making such material available in
our efforts to advance understanding of
issues of humanitarian and ecological
significance. The images on this website
are not necessarily those of survivors of
violence and human rights abuse.
© Social Geographic Foundation
Please NOTE and RESPECT the copyright.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. None of the
images may be copied, reproduced,
published or distributed in any medium
without the expressed written
permission.
SocialGe graphic
E-mail: socialgeographic@gmail.com Photo: Firoz Ahmad Firoz