Female foeticide, India's ugly social norm.

Post date: Apr 18, 2017 8:49:7 PM

Written by Pralambika Nagar at Thursday, April 6, 2017 5:03:18 AM

While watching one of the best-known Bollywood movies recently, which I also happen to love, I caught onto the father of the girl in the movie say, “You know how they say daughters are a burden for a father, not in my case because I was lucky to have a daughter like you”. I remember thinking, who says that? Turns out that when you live in India, everyone.

I remember reading about female foeticide in school and I also remember a naive pre- teen me disregarding the issue because I thought it was something only a very small amount of people living in rural did. Oh, how wrong I was. I would not say that I know people who have forced an abortion on a pregnant woman after finding out that she will be having a daughter, but there are people I know and love who would definitely care if their child or grandchild was female.

It is illegal to get an ultrasound to determine the sex of the baby in India, but just like dowry, it still happens. The wife of a close cousin of mine is pregnant with her first child and my cousin was told by his relatives about a pill that can supposedly ensure he has a son and was also told about a clinic that could do a sex determination test for a hefty amount. I was shocked and confused. Confused because how could the most living and caring people I knew even consider something like this? My cousin got neither of those things done, but just the fact that it was considered was distressing to me. I asked my cousin's mother a few questions and found that they would prefer a son because he is the one who will earn money and take care of everyone in house while a daughter would be a burden. A burden because she will be "given" to her husband's family where she is expected to stay home and take care of kids. A burden because who has the money to give dowry?

A woman was forced to abort her daughter by her husband and in-laws by putting a pill in her vagina and then having her pee the baby out. Another

woman who refused to abort her baby, had her baby pushed down the stairs by her mother-in-law. India needs to start stigmatizing and not

disregarding female foetocides. The same goes for dowry. And the same goes for socially accepting treating women like objects and burdens.