Women form human chain against foeticide

About 1,000 women formed a human chain in eastern India today to protest against the recent spate of cases of female foeticide discovered in the area.

The eastern state of Orrissa was rocked last week after the discovery of 30 plastic bags stuffed with tiny skulls and other body parts in an abandoned well.

Police believe they may be aborted female foetuses or newborn girls killed because their families wanted boys.

The women blocked a main road in the city of Cuttack demanding that the government crack down on those performing abortions illegally. Cuttack is about 20 miles north of Bhubaneswar, the state capital.

“The main objective of the human chain was to put pressure on the state government to nab and punish the persons, including doctors, involved in the recent cases of female foeticide,” said Sandhya Mohapatra, one of the participants.

Yesterday, police discovered 14 clay jars believed to contain foetuses buried in a field near Cuttack, said city superintendent of police Amitabh Thakur, adding that two employees of a private nursing home had been detained for questioning. Tests were being carried out to determine if the foetuses were female.

Many Indian families see daughters as a liability because of a tradition requiring a bride’s family to pay the groom’s family a large dowry of cash and gifts.

Girls often don’t receive the same education as boys and many don’t get adequate medical treatment.

Last year, an international team of researchers estimated that up to 10 million female foetuses had been aborted in the past decade in India, a country of about 1.1 billion people.

The result is a gender ratio increasingly skewed in favour of men – there were 927 women for every 1,000 men, according to the 2001 census, down from 945 women per 1,000 men in 1991.

Abortions have been legal in India since 1971 and are viewed as a way to curb population growth, but the number of facilities is limited and rural women often resort to abortions performed under unsafe conditions.

Prenatal sex determination tests and abortions on the basis of gender are both illegal.