Langmei VA
IMPHAL, May 24: The Langmei (Ritiang/Chiang) VA has decided to take step against any threat to DIET, Tamei Headquarters. A statement issued by the chairman of Langmei VA, P Lungpadbow also appealed the DIET, Tamei and the students to discharge their duty .....
Govt signs MoU with UPPK
IMPHAL, May 24: A home-coming ceremony of UPPK leaders and cadres was held today at 1st MR banquet hall during which a tripartite Me-morandum of Understanding was signed between the outfit, Government of Manipur and Government of India. Chief Minister .....
Muivah states stand to titular king
IMPHAL, May 24: “Nagas and Meiteis should decide for their own future and our future will be the outcome of this de-cision”, stated NSCN-IM Ato Kilonser Thuingaleng Muivah during a meeting with titular king Leishemba Sanajaoba at Hebron, Dimapur. .....
N/East Mt Everest Expedition ends
IMPHAL, May 24: With the successful summit to Mt Eve-rest by Manish Deka from Assam today at 5.45am, the record setting 1st NE India Mt Everest Expedition came to an end. The total number of successful Everesters from the expedition team stands at 11......
Ukhrul protest
UKHRUL, May 24: More than 1500 Anganwadi Workers and Helpers staged sit in protest at Ukhrul Mini Secretariat Complex today demand- ing payment of their pending twelve months honorarium. Later in the afternoon, a memorandum addressed to the Minister o.....
Flaws in Govt's Agri policy
IMPHAL, May 24: At a time when the Government of India is putting in serious effort to develop agriculture and allied sectors by pumping in additional fund, the State Government is currently pain-ting a contrasting picture. According to an official sou.....
KNF officer shot dead
IMPHAL, May 24: Comman-ding officer of KNF’s Ebenezer Camp HS Shanty Kipgen was shot dead by some unidentified persons at around 10 pm of May 23. Some 7/8 unidentified persons came to the house one Bimola located just beside Fo-rest Beat Office near.....
Fund boost to Mary's goal
NEW DELHI, May 24: The sports ministry has given in-principle approval for a grant of Rs 309.56 lakh to Olympic medallist Mary Kom's Regional Boxing Foundation at Imphal for construction of a gymnasium hall and procurement of equipments. The grant, to .....
Parents' body
IMPHAL, May 24: Close on the heels of 15 school children collapsing inside an overcrowded school van yesterday, All Manipur Guardian Stuents Organisation (AMSGO) has demanded that strict instruction be given by Education Minister to van drivers not to cra.....
Cultural prog
IMPHAL, May 24: A one day cultural and musical exchange programme was held today at Senapati Public Ground under the aegis of Senapati District Students’ Association (SDSA) and Kuki Students’ Organisa-tion, Sadar Hills (KSO-SH). The programme held .....
Centre naive on NH protection force plan
IMPHAL, May 24: Despite continuous demand from va-rious sections for deployment of highway protection force (HPF) to ensure safe passage of vehicle operators and pas-sengers along the national highways connecting Manipur to other parts of the country, the.....
Screening for Cervical Cancer
By Dr BabinaThangjam When Ashangbi Devi (name changed) started having regular bouts of back pain and watery vaginal discharge, she instinctively knew something was not right.She started experiencing all thesemany years after her menopause and at first, s.....
“Go for gospel music”
By Rev L Simon Raomai Rock music is in the air virtually everywhere today. It is a captivate music culture which originated from western world. It is popularized from packed sports arena to advertisements that peddle everything from movie sound tracks an.....
Traditional healing methods with special reference to Manipur
By Dr K Paochunbou (Contd from previous issue) But Scientists know that the bitter taste is caused by a toxin- “tetracyclic trieterpenoid cucurbitacin compound” and such toxin can cause vomiting of blood, severe diarrhoea, severe ulcers, fatal, st.....
School vans : Packed like sardines The wake up call
It did not end in a disaster. A providential escape ? Whatever, the warning cannot and should not be ignored. Packed like sardines in a can. This is perhaps the closest description of school vans all over Imphal and the other towns of Manipur, like Churac.....
KKSDDA warns
IMPHAL, May 24: Highlighting the scores of inconveniences faced by the people of Kasom Khullen Subdivision due to prolonged absence of responsible SDO/BDO and delayed in inauguration of the new office building, the Kasom Khullen Subdivision Development As.....
Successful candidates congratulated
IMPHAL, May 24: The Thoubal Police has congratulated Kshetrimayum Thoithoinganba Meitei s/o Ksh Rajen Singh and Sougrakpam (N) Ksh (O) Nonibala Devi of Thoubal Nongangkhong who secured the 8th position in the HSLC Exam 2013 conducted by the BSEM. A sta.....
KSO reprimands Cdl NRHM
IMPHAL, May 24: Expressing discontentment over the conduct of perfunctory three-day health mela at Joupi village in Khengjoy subdivision from May 17-19 by the NRHM Chandel, the Kuki Students' Organisation played down the health mela saying it was done onl.....
Two UG cadres nabbed
IMPHAL, May 24: A PREPAK cadre reportedly with several criminal records was arrested by a combined team of Thoubal police commandos and 6 Dogra today around 4.10 pm while conducting a search operation at Pallel Bazar. Identifying the arrested PREPAK ca.....
AITSA for change of leadership in Govt
IMPHAL, May 24: The All India Tribal Students’ Association Delhi (AITSA) and the Mongoloid Peoples Forum (MPF), Delhi, expressing apprehension on the virtual lack of sensitivity and the decaying secular character of the State Government, urged the Con.....
Sunday Sentiments
By : Urmila Chanam
Why do daughters go missing? Sex selective abortion in India
The girl child must be saved from sex selective abortion that is rampant in India, never giving her a chance to be born. Today in the worst affected states the child sex ration has fallen alarmingly. A girl’s life is subject to economic and social oppression in the stiff and rigid patriarchy of the Indian society and the social evil of dowry has made the girl child to be least preferred by a family. If sex selective abortion has not been carried out to eliminate the female life in a foetus, the new born is being killed in a later stage. There have been instances of new born baby girl being found half eaten by street dogs from a bin! It made it to the front of our newspapers but never on our hearts and on our minds because we still seem to walk on as fast on this path as ever before.
The government of India has woken up from its slumber of ignorance and is attempting to contain the escalating gender disparity. It is inculcating strategies in its health programs and other development initiatives based on community but how effective are these to stop sex selective abortions are yet to be seen. With the gap in the child sex ratio ever rising, one is forced to believe that people who are engaged in this practice are smarter than the government! Research shows that this practice is most rampant among the middle class and the educated lot!
The child sex ratio is the worst affected in the states of Punjab and Haryana where it stands less than 800 girls for every 1000 boys! In India, the ratio has shown a sharp decline from 976 girls to 1000 boys in the year 1961 to just 927 in 2001. As per global trends the normal child sex ratio should be as high as 950. To tackle this phenomenon the government of India has banned ultrasound to determine the sex of the child during pregnancy by the ‘Pre conception and Pre Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT Act. Any doctor giving consent or being party to the process of sex determination before the birth of the child is held as a criminal offender. However to add to this figure is the reality that most sex selective abortions are unrecorded because it is all done under the table under the wraps of gender discrimination and so called Indian ‘tradition’. It’s almost impossible to convict anyone because the chain involves everyone and not just the doctor.
A renown NGO by the name VIMOCHANA in their research and field survey conducted in the southern state of Karnataka found that in all the hospitals where they studied the response of doctors to requests of aborting the female child, was met with zero resistance from the doctors! This survey was implemented under cover and in disguise and the results were shocking. Though the law of the land is strict on paper a lot is going on out of the vigil of law. This NGO has also recorded the extent to which doctors in Karnataka have gone to carry out this practice fully aware of the law and devising smart ways to escape from its clutches. In one instance, informants have mentioned how doctors use a + sign for indicating a male and – for a female, and in some cases they have a picture of Lord Krishna ( male god of the Indian Mythology) on one wall and Goddess Laxmi ( female god) on other. They then look at the wall with Lord Krishna to inform the couple that the child in the womb is a male and to the wall with Goddess Laxmi to indicate a female child in the womb. Every method to contain this practice has been over ridden by people. A grass root worker of a government health program in villages of the country says that the pregnancies are terminated as early as before the completion of first trimester. If the pregnancy is to bear a male child, it is allowed to carry on and it’s even recorded in the government statistics but if it is the other way round, the PHC is never informed. It’s a hush-hush matter * If we want the sex selective abortion to end, we need to have a policy to address the social issue of oppression of the woman and dowry.
After a lot of research and analysis it has been found that one of the reasons why sex selective abortion has not been able to be *recorded officially, is because the mother has been a willing party and in the absence of resistance from her, the aim of the government to stop this practice will never come true. Most often these women have seen so much of oppression in their family, community and society and borne the brunt of violence in one form or the other, they resign to believe that she must not bear a girl child to save her progeny from a similar fate.
In this light, the problem of sex selective abortion in India is a gender and human rights issue, one that has deep roots in our culture. Will we as a nation be able to mellow down our culture to protect the right of a girl to be born? Or will we allow this termination of girls while still in the wombs of their mothers? If this trend carries on the child sex ratio will drop down even further. With the drop of the number of the girl in the nation, we should expect a rise in crime against women and a pressure on the dynamics of securing a life partner in marriage and consequently, a rise in inter caste marriages. Is India prepared to brace this dip in its equilibrium or will it step up its policy, advocacy, implementation and efforts to change the mind sets of people as a whole to narrow the present gender imbalances.
I take this vow today to be a woman of strength, economically self reliant and socially productive, empowering other women to seek strength within themselves. I take this vow to bear a female child and never let myself think that she will live a life of deprivation and oppression. I take this vow to rear her up to become a strong person tomorrow. I take this vow to instil in her the faith that it is worthwhile to give our daughters a chance to be born, to grow, to live and to excel among us.
The day the women of my country stand up and take this vow we will get to see all our daughters who went missing.
The writer is an activist, campaigner and journalist with World Pulse & Voices for Human Rights, has been awarded fellowship from the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India for work on water sanitation in Indian villages and she can be reached at - urmila.chanam@gmail.com
N Hangsing
We, the people of India, needs more of Urmilas. Keep writing and please concentrate on social issues in the days to come. MAY GOD GIVES U THE STRENGTH TO MOVE FORWARD IN YOUR LIFE.
Niranjan Shuney
Yes,its true. But it is depend upon their families. Lady've good quality than others guys. So,for my opinion its upto you. All people of Manipur have to know this.
Pumei Golmei
It's really dishearten,heart broken to hear about someone gone missing or force to sex slave. Imposing heavy punishment on human traffickers should be the best acceptable choice.
