Female foeticide on the rise

The barbaric acts that are committed against women are endless and there's no single cause behind these issues. The secondary status of women and the fact that she is considered nothing more than a commodity has a significant role to play behind the imbalance in female to male sex ratio.

In India, female foeticide and infanticide are rampant and the number of cases being reported is increasing by the day. Rural areas without means to determine the sex of their child wait till it is born and when the newborn is a girl child; they go ahead and kill the baby without a second thought. These babies are strangled to death, poisoned, starved or sometimes, even thrown in garbage bins. The male child is considered to be superior and its birth is celebrated by one and all. The continued practice of dowry, even though it is illegal and a fear that the girl child may be abused are believed to be some reasons behind the increasing number of incidences of female foeticide in India.
Many have voiced their concern over this sensitive issue and campaigns have been launched to create awareness. The menace will be hard to fight till we all realise that each girl child born is a unique and valuable human being who is entitled to equal opportunities as everyone else. It does not matter whether she is born in an affluent family or in some faraway village, she has the right to live and live it without submitting to anyone's dictates. Society needs to change its notion that a woman should be submissive and obedient towards her husband/father. Gender discrimination only makes the situation worse and people go on living this life of blissful unawareness. Many states in India have witnessed adverse demographic implications and a dip in the number of girls born.

According to a United Nations report, an estimated 2000 unborn girls are illegally aborted in India every day. Parts of Haryana have witnessed a dip in sex ratio - 618 girls for 1,000 boys. On the whole, while the national sex ratio is 933 per 1,000 men, in Haryana, Punjab, Chandigarh, and Delhi, it is below 900. Such alarming figures are sure to raise doubts in our mind whether enough has been done to curb female foeticide. The deeply entrenched values and beliefs that exist in our society are a hindrance to the all round development of women. Women need to be treated as equals and should be given all the rights that come under the purview of human rights. Equality of status for the girl child has to be ensured and strict laws have to be in place to protect the life of the born and the unborn.