POPULATION-ASIA: Gendercide at Apocalyptic Levels - Experts

Experts at the 4th Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights are painting an apocalyptical vision of the Asian region where 163 million women are ‘missing’ and the sex ratio continues to decline as a result of easy access to modern gender selection techniques.

China tops the list of countries with a skewed sex ratio at birth (SRB) with just 100 females for every 120 males. India follows going by the country’s 2001 census, which revealed that the SRB had fallen to 108 males per 100 females.

Experts worry that unless action is taken, Nepal and Vietnam may soon have skewed SRBs. Countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh are already beginning to follow Asia’s largest countries with people resorting to medical technology to do away with the girl child at the foetal stage.

"We place it (skewed SRB) in the context of discrimination against women," said Purnima Mane, deputy executive director UNFPA, while addressing the press. "Women are not valued.’’ She predicted that a continuing unhealthy SRB trend could lead to increased violence, migration and trafficking as well as greater pressures on women.

"When there is no economic recognition to women’s work and no social value attached to this particular gender, when resource sharing remains inequitable, when women are paid less then it becomes easier to do away with this gender,’’ said Renuka Chowdhry, India’s junior minister for women and child development, at the inaugural of the Oct 29-31 conference.

She called for increased women’s political participation and a push for laws and legislations that empower them as remedy to the adverse sex ratio. ‘’Don’t mess with nature, otherwise it will lead to a mutation of society,’’ she warned.

But where have all the girls gone? The sobering answer to the unbalanced SRB, according to the latest series of studies commissioned by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), lies in modern gender determination and selective abortions.

French demographer Christophe Guilmoto, author of the UNFPA’s regional report ‘Sex ratio Imbalance in Asia,’ based on studies conducted in China, India, Nepal and Vietnam and presented at the conference, referred to it as ‘gendercide’ in which millions of parents resort to a variety of techniques to ensure male offspring. Choosing gender had become easy with the arrival of amniocentesis in the lae 1970s and later with ultrasound imaging technologies.

In 2005, the estimated overall sex ratio was 107.5 males per 100 females in India, as against 106.8 in China, 106.0 in Pakistan and 104.9 in Bangladesh -- four countries that accounted for 43 percent of the world’s population in 2005.

The underlying reasons for the abnormal sex ratio in China, explained Baige Zhao, vice minister of that country’s National Population and Family Planning Commission, included the age-old bias for sons, a poor social security system in rural areas and a trend for smaller-sized families.

The draconian one-child policy imposed by China’s government at that time and the high cost of child rearing provided just the climate for abusing modern technology.
In India, discrimination against girls is more intense among urbanites and well-to-do families, while similar data from China indicate that sex selection appears more pronounced among peasants than among urban residents. In both India and China, education tends to be positively associated with discrimination against the girl child.

Perhaps that is why Gillian Greer, director-general at International Planned Parenthood Foundation, laid particular emphasis on "real investment in girls’ education" as a critical driver of development if they are to be saved from becoming "invisible and forgotten’’.

Interestingly Pakistan -- where abortion is illegal and unsafe abortions rampant -- does not yet have a sex selection problem. "The fewer studies that have been carried out all point to the fact that sex selective abortion is very rare. This could be because we have not been deluged by technology as in other countries in the region," explained Dr Yasmeen Sabeeh Qazi, country representative, the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, Pakistan.

Pakistan also benefits from positive religious beliefs. ‘’One cannot ignore that such deeds (selective abortions) are considered sinful with great misfortune befalling those who commit such deeds. One of the commonest teachings of Prophet Mohammad, with which all Pakistanis are familiar, relates to not burying daughters alive (a practice in Arabia before the advent of Islam)."

The social ramifications of these private decisions will end up affecting everyone and a ‘masculinisation’ of Asia, predict specialists. There will be a vast army of surplus males causing a ‘marriage squeeze’ with the most underprivileged the worst off. With fewer women of marriageable age, men will have to delay marriage; it may also lead to a backlog of older unmarried men.

However, say experts, it is still not late to turn around the numbers. South Korea, after a period of 25-30 years, has brought back its SRB to normal levels through self-regulatory mechanisms and economic change. The South Korean government also contributed significantly to this.

The UNFPA study recommends keeping an eye on the private health sector which has played a major role in spreading gender selection technology, and a strict regulation of sex-determination procedures.

Many countries already have tight regulations. India started as early as 1983, followed by South Korea in 1987 and China in 1989. Nepal banned sex-selective abortions in 2002 when it liberalised its own law on abortions. But these laws have proved extremely difficult to enforce. India’s Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Technology Act of 1994 prohibited both the use and advertising of gender determination techniques, but remains largely ignored. Reducing sex-ratio imbalances is better achieved through advocacy, sensitisation and awareness-raising programmes says the UNFPA report. "By targeting special groups, such as health personnel, young women and students," people’s mindsets and attitudes towards girls can be changed.’’

"The role of girls and women (in society) needs to be applauded," suggested Guilmoto.

"Supporting girls or those families that only have girls can take many forms -- direct subsidies at the time of birth, various scholarship programmes, gender-based quotas or financial incentives aimed at improving their economic situation," UNFPA recommends in its report.

Source: Inter Press Service

Men should participate in empowering women: Chowdhury

Men should be involved in the process of improving the imbalanced sex ratio in the Asia Pacific region and help empower women, said Minister for Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdhury.

Addressing the 4th Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights (APCRSH) here, Chowdhury said: "We must start looking at the issue of imbalanced sex ratio holistically and get the men, especially the younger lot, involved in improving the condition.

"It is important to make the men realise that empowering women doesn't mean dis-empowering them. I think that it's time we listen to the men's point of view and use that to improve the situation," Chowdhury said.

India's population, according to the last census in 2001, was 1.03 billion, becoming the second country in the world after China to cross the one billion mark.
However, the sex ratio continues to be dismal. Between 1991-2001, 70 districts in 16 states and union territories in India recorded more than a 50-point decline in the child sex ratio.

In places like Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat, the sex ratio is less than 900 girls to every 1,000 boys.

According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), with an increase in pre-natal son selection, which is rampant in most of the Asian countries, there is bound to be dire consequences.

"To begin with, this will lead to enormous pressure on the female population which will be heavily outnumbered by males.

"A growing number of men will be unable to find wives, which in turn will lead to rise in sexual violence and trafficking in women," Purnima Mane, deputy executive director of UNFPA, told IANS.

If the sex ratio remains the same by 2040-50, there will be a 28 million surplus male population in India.

Although it is believed that the preference for a male child in India and in many other Asian countries is because of cultural and economic reasons, Chowdhury said that she doesn't believe that this is the case.

"Look at China. It attracts the world's largest amount of foreign direct investments (FDI), yet its sex ratio is not ideal. Many prosperous families in India still prefer a son to a daughter.

"And as far as culture as concerned, I think it is simply a convenient excuse for people to oppress a gender," she said.

"At the end I think that in treating the imbalanced sex ratio, men should be made equal participants. Only then can the problem be solved," Chowdhury added.

Source: Indo-Asian News Service

Call to check high mortality rate in Asia Pacific

The high maternal mortality rate and the rising number of deaths due to unsafe abortions in several Asian countries including India were a cause of concern, participants said at the fourth Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights. The conference was held in Hyderabad, India last October 29-31.
Several countries were lagging behind in achieving the target of universal sexual and reproductive health services by 2015, said participants.

Despite several countries making progress in increasing access to sexual and reproductive health, too many gaps still remain, felt Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive director, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in her key note address.

'Today far too many women, men and young people continue to be denied their sexual and reproductive health and this is witnessed by the high rate of unintended pregnancies persistent and wide spread violence against women and girls,' she said in her address which was read out by Purnima Mane, deputy executive director, UNFPA in Thoraya's absence.

The conference was attended by about 1,500 representatives from 52 countries to discuss the issues related to the reproductive and sexual health and rights.
Describing maternal mortality and morbidity as one of the major challenges before the Asia Pacific region, she said that South Asia had the highest rate of maternal mortality outside Africa and almost half of the world's maternal deaths occur in South Asia.

She said several countries in the region would fall short of meeting the target of millennium development goals of providing the reproductive and sexual health services to at least 80 percent of the population by 2015.

'In South Asia only 38 percent of women enjoy the skilled attendants at delivery. At the current rate of progress countries in Asia will provide skilled coverage for only about 60 percent of deliveries,' she said adding that greater action was needed to train, deploy and retain midwives in communities and villages.

Thoraya also expressed deep concern over the alarming rise in the pre natal sex selection, which was persisting despite progressive legislation and efforts by the governments and civil society leading to a long term socio cultural and demographic and economic consequences.

Various institutions in India, China, Nepal and Vietnam with the help of UNFPA have conducted a research on declining sex ratio in these countries and their root causes. In India sex ratio has fallen to 933 women for 1,000 men.

'In socially and economically advanced society sex ratios are favourable to the females. However this is not the case in India, China and some other south and east Asian countries,' she said.

Source: Indo-Asian News Service