01-11-2013, 11:40 PM
The 'genocide' of India's daughters
Supreme Court judges in India have summoned the health secretaries in seven states over a worrying fall in the number of young girls in India.
They are demanding details about clinics flouting the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act – to determine the sex of unborn babies – with potentially fatal consequences.
The judges are blaming what they call rampant foeticide and infanticide, and they say the mindset of parents and society need to change.
"The people [district medical officers] who are supposed to be enforcing the [Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act] they themselves have the same patriarchal mindset and they don't feel that it's wrong to kill a girl child in the desire for a boy, naturally they won't go and prosecute anybody. Add to it corruption [within the medical profession]."
The UN children's charity UNICEF says the culture of favouring males in India is costing the lives of millions of young girls
Supreme Court judges in India have summoned the health secretaries in seven states over a worrying fall in the number of young girls in India.
They are demanding details about clinics flouting the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act – to determine the sex of unborn babies – with potentially fatal consequences.
The judges are blaming what they call rampant foeticide and infanticide, and they say the mindset of parents and society need to change.
"The people [district medical officers] who are supposed to be enforcing the [Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act] they themselves have the same patriarchal mindset and they don't feel that it's wrong to kill a girl child in the desire for a boy, naturally they won't go and prosecute anybody. Add to it corruption [within the medical profession]."
The UN children's charity UNICEF says the culture of favouring males in India is costing the lives of millions of young girls
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The 'genocide' Of India's Daughters
We ask if the patriarchal mindset that runs across castes and...