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British
Indians too indulge in foeticide
LONDON: British Indian women are as prone to the secretive, outlawed
practice of female foeticide as their counterparts in the mother
country and they generally travel to India for the purpose.
This revelation by the BBC's Asian Network radio station on Monday
comes as Oxford University population experts declared they had
found at least 1,500 Indian girl children "missing" from birth
statistics in England and Wales in the last 17 years.
The Oxford study, which looked at birth rates of different ethnic
groups here, concluded that there had been an abnormal increase in
the proportion of boys over girls in the Indian community from 1990.
Dr Sylvie Dubuc, a human geography and population expert at Oxford,
said that the most likely explanation was sex-selective abortion by
Indian-born British women. This represents one in 10 girls "missing"
from the birth statistics for Indian-born women having their third
or fourth child.
But the BBC radio investigation, which is targeted at Asian
listeners, said that it is not just Indian-born British women who
are resorting to the culturally-specific practice of female
foeticide. Using first-hand evidence from interviews with
British-born-and-bred Indian women, it said the practice appears to
be quietly accepted among this strand of the 1.3-million-strong
community as well.
The revelation received ballast on Monday when a Punjabi local
councillor from the Indian-dominant city of Leicester admitted the
practice was rife among British Indians.
The BBC investigation used an actor to recount the story of one of
its interviewees, who used the false name 'Meena'. The British-born
office-worker in her 30s described the pressures of being an Indian
wife in the UK who disappointingly produced a string of three
daughters only to find scorn and derision from her Punjabi family.
She devastatingly said that Indian culture can still exert a huge
pressure on women to have boys - to carry on the family name and
because girls are expensive - and that the pressure exists on Indian
women living in Britain too. "It is all up to the husband and it's
usually the husband's side of the family who - you know - are
putting the pressure on."
Commentators said the revelation that British Indians were prone to
female foeticide discounts the notion that living in the West
confers "emancipation" on immigrant communities.
Interestingly, the BBC's investigation, Oxford research and
resulting media coverage sparked an immediate Muslim response on the
internet with bloggers sending in United Nations statistics listing
India having "killed 50 million + girls in the last 50 years; China
killed 50 million + girls in the last 50 years; the US has killed 44
million girl and boys from 1974 till today, yet who is considered
oppressive to women and children - Islam and Muslim countries."
'Meena', who travelled to Delhi last year to find out the sex of her
unborn fourth child, said it was easy to find a doctor in India to
conduct the scan and subsequent abortion. Describing her deep
personal sadness at being forced to abort the baby, 'Meena' said
"Unfortunately it was another girl. My husband and I thought the
burden would probably be too much and the pressure when I got back
home. So we decided to terminate". She added, "Personally it was
very upsetting for me. I didn't really want my other children to
know, and I don't mean it in a bad way, but my husband seemed rather
blasé about it. I think I felt bad because I knew I shouldn't be
doing this - for the reasons I was doing it - it wasn't nice."
The BBC also sensationally revealed that it had used an undercover
British Indian couple to find out just how easy or hard it is to
persuade an Indian doctor to determine the sex of a foetus and
terminate the pregnancy. It said its undercover couple went to one
of Delhi's leading gynaecologists, Dr Mangala Telang, who is
actually recommended by the British High Commission and has publicly
campaigned against the "evil" crime of female foeticide.
The BBC said that its secret filming showing Telang agreeing to
perform the ultrasound scan, warning the couple not to tell anyone
about what they were doing as it is illegal and agreeing to
recommend a doctor to carry out an abortion if the foetus were a
girl.
The doctor has refused to admit she did anything wrong though the
BBC insists its film shows this to be the case.
5 December, 2007
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