Fury over Indian minister鈥檚 call for mandatory prenatal sex tests
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India鈥檚 children鈥檚 minister has called for mandatory tests to determine the sex of an unborn child to try to counter high levels of female foeticide, sparking fierce criticism yesterday from women鈥檚 activists.
Prenatal sex tests are officially illegal in India, a policy designed to stop so many unborn girls being aborted by parents desperate for a boy.
But in a speech on Monday, Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi said a more effective strategy would be to record the sex of a foetus at the outset of the pregnancy and then monitor its progress.
鈥淗ow long are we going to keep making criminals out of people? How long are we going to put the onus on sonographers?
鈥淢y view is why not change the present policy. Every pregnant woman should be compulsorily told whether it is a boy or girl,鈥 Gandhi said.
鈥淲hen a woman becomes pregnant it should be registered and that way you will be able to monitor right until the end whether she gave birth or not and what happened,鈥 she said in the western city of Jaipur.
Parents and doctors can be jailed for up to five years for asking for or conducting a prenatal sex test. But the tests are still thought to be widespread, particularly in impoverished rural areas.
A 2011 study in the British medical journal The Lancet found that up to 12 million girls had been aborted in the last three decades in India.
The country had 940 females for every 1,000 males, according to the last official census published in 2011, up from 933 in 2001 in a trend that some campaigners say vindicates the current policy of banning sex tests.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has previously spoken out against the killing of unborn girls, warning that the gender imbalance will have serious consequences for the country鈥檚 development, although he has not addressed the issue of sex tests.
Gandhi, who is the sister-in-law of opposition leader Sonia Gandhi, said she was 鈥渏ust putting out this idea鈥 that was being discussed with her ministerial counterparts.
鈥淲e have not reached a conclusion, we are still discussing the pros and cons,鈥 she said.
In a statement yesterday, her office said there was no 鈥渇ormal proposal鈥 being considered by her ministry after some local media quoted her as saying one was being discussed in cabinet.
Women鈥檚 rights groups said a change of policy would result in women from rural areas coming under even more pressure from families to have an abortion.
鈥淭his is not a very productive idea, in fact it could make things worse,鈥 said Ranjana Kumari, director of the Delhi-based Centre for Social Research. 鈥淭his might work among educated women, but not for large numbers of women living in rural areas who are still under enormous pressure to ... have a boy.鈥
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