"Let us agree to go beyond billboard exhortations to ‘love the girl child.' "
The decline in child sex ratio is cause for alarm, but also occasion for serious policy re-think. This artificial alteration of our demographic landscape has implications for not only gender justice and equality but also social violence, human development and democracy. The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : India & the sex selection conundrum.
Sex selection is located at the complex interface of cultural attitudes, patriarchal prejudice, socioeconomic pressures, the changes wrought by modernity, and the commercialisation and misuse of modern medical technology. The impact of modernity and materialism on the decreased valuation of females i.e. enhanced daughter aversion, the lack of old-age social security i.e. son preference, increasing violence against women, property rights, inheritance laws — each of these and more play a role.
We must demand of ourselves an equally comprehensive national policy on the sex ratio, capable of addressing each contributory factor.
Sex selection is located at the complex interface of cultural attitudes, patriarchal prejudice, socioeconomic pressures, the changes wrought by modernity, and the commercialisation and misuse of modern medical technology. The impact of modernity and materialism on the decreased valuation of females i.e. enhanced daughter aversion, the lack of old-age social security i.e. son preference, increasing violence against women, property rights, inheritance laws — each of these and more play a role.
We must demand of ourselves an equally comprehensive national policy on the sex ratio, capable of addressing each contributory factor.
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