The Deprived, Discriminated & Damned Girl Child: Story of Declining Child Sex Ratios in India

This article traces the different elements that explain and help understand the phenomena of declining child sex ratios in India along with the debates on the subject, with specific focus on urban locations. The gender discriminatory practices prevalent in India stem from the influence of patriarchy and the lower status of women which result in higher female child mortality rates as compared to males, intra household inequalities in consumption, heinous practice of demanding exorbitant dowries for marrying girls, abandonment of girls and so on. The misuse of medical technologies—evolved to identify abnormalities in foetal stages—as tools for identification of the sex of the foetus instead and resort to sex-selective abortion of female fetuses have come to light since the eighties. This female foeticide is in many ways more horrific, as it is also practiced by the educated, better off sections of the population and is more rampant among urban locales.