A
SURE SOLUTION TO FIGHT SEX SELECTION
DR.
SHANTANU ABHYANKAR, Wai, Maharashtra.
PIN 412 803
Mobile
No: 98220 10 349
Female
feticide, sex selection rather, is a complex problem and begets multipronged
solutions. There are several important interventions.
Women’s
empowerment is the final solution. Education, Sukanya Samruddhi Yojna, common
civil code, special laws for women and an appropriate share for women in
inheritance, are a few such efforts.
Laws
like the PCPNDT provide only immediate but temporary respite.
The
law just can’t nab the true culprits, with evidence strong enough to support
conviction, without a lot of collateral damage.
It is
readily possible to dodge the law by simply keeping your paperwork perfect,
since that is all that the law checks. Pregnancies, abortions and births are
such common occurrence, that it is humanly impossible to sniff out the offenders
from the data currently generated, in keeping with this law. The frustration
drives the NGOs and administration to ad hoc and arbitrary actions.
Is
there a solution? Yes there is…
The
law should mandate that every pregnancy be registered and should receive a
unique identity number. The doctor will have to quote this number and register
each ultrasound test online to a central server. All the outcomes of pregnancy,
abortions (spontaneous or induced), births, stillbirths, etc: will be linked
to this number. Thus outcome of every pregnancy will now be traceable. If the
sex is declared, as suggested by Mrs. Maneka Gandhi, it will make the whole
effort sharper. However this needs deeper consideration.
If
abortions conducted after USG test in a particular centre are not being
reported, we probably have nabbed the guilty.
If
women deliver unusually high (statistically significant) number of boys after
USG test at a particular center, we know who the wrongdoer is. The current law
can’t nab families who choose not to abort a pregnancy since it is a male
fetus! The whole focus is on female feticide. Knowingly continuing the
pregnancy with a male fetus is sex selection too. It’s as criminal; it’s as
harmful as female feticide but the law breakers can never be apprehended. The
present law thus allows half the culprits to go scot free. The new system will
catch these parties, the implementation will become more focused, more
effective more relevant.
It is
easier to trace back each pregnancy from its outcome backwards. Playing ‘Help
the Bunny reach Home’, it is easier to trace the route back to the Bunny,
starting from the home; than trace all the roads beginning from the Bunny.
This
may sound impossible but rest assured it is not. If ‘Idea’ can maintain records
of each call, SMS etc of each of its customer, if the government can count each
head for the census, this is too simple a task. Everyone has a smartphone;
each Primary Health Center has an internet connection, so this is easy. The
administration has all the skills to take care of wrong entries, double entries
etc: what with the wide experience of Adhaar and Voter card schemes.
There
are other positive benefits.
May
be a woman has aborted, spontaneously or with medical help, maybe she has had a
stillborn child, she has delivered at home, unsupervised by any birth
attendant...and none of this has been
documented. However each of the above is an important bit of information and
needs to be documented needs to be reported. Such an omission is a glaring gap
in the health services reaching the woman. The suggested model helps to quantify
this gap in service, helps to correct any lacunae. Routine investigations, iron
supplementation, tetanus prophylaxis, all this and more can be added as a part
of this model. This will lead to an overall improvement in antenatal services,
a fall in sex selection will only be one of its many positive fallouts!
In
short, the issue at stake is comprehensive and good women’s care, antenatal
care. Sex selection is but a symptom of a deeper malady. One can’t treat it by
singling it out. If you do, it’s like firing in a smoke screen, very little real
effect but a lot of collateral damage.
