Women's eNews (https://womensenews.org/tag/sex-selective_abortion/)
Female feticide may be illegal in India but old structures of patriarchy combine with medical technologies to keep it going. We need basic awareness campaigns, not government mandates that will first invade a woman’s privacy and then backfire.
India’s female shortage, say activists, makes the country more dangerous for women. In an effort to raise awareness of female feticide, 100 bikers pedaled 50 miles on Sunday.
This cultural innovation is part of why 2014 will go down in Indian history as a year when society began cherishing girls and women and overcoming denigrating traditions. Reason to celebrate the U.N.’s International Day of the Girl Child on Oct. 11.
The women go undercover in diagnostic centers to catch clinicians who break India’s 1994 federal law against sex-selective abortions. In the process, they are addressing a heavily skewed sex ratio and helping to make their district a model for enforcement.
Albanian officials deny any evidence of widespread sex-selective abortion. But on the heels of a critical U.N. report the government is ordering a task force to consider a problem that researchers say is rooted in a cultural bias for male heirs.