Baghpat city; It is the administrative center of Bagpat district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and was also established in 1997. Life is not very ordinary for women living in this region. Women in Baghpat and its surroundings are forced to marry more than one man. The region is known as a region where gender imbalance and gender selective killing are common. These complex and striking facts from Baghpat reveal the great challenges India faces in combating gender inequality.
In the Baghpat region, the number of women is less than that of men, causing young women to be forced to marry several men. This situation was also highlighted in a news report published by the Telegraph in 2019. For example, 17-year-old Majida, just a month into her marriage, learned that she had to marry both of her husband’s siblings, and when she refused, she was raped and assaulted. Majida explained this compulsion by saying, “They come on different days, they have their turns, they have their days.”
This pressure to marry more than one man and bride trade The trend is fueling the increasing gender imbalance, especially when parents abort their baby girls. The Baghpat district is a region in India that the United Nations warned was reaching “emergency proportions” in 2014. gender imbalance is at the center of the problem. As per 2011, the Indian government census showed that there were only 856 women for 1000 men in the district.
Gender Imbalance and Gender Selective Killing
Dr. runs Vatsalya, an NGO fighting against the abortion of female fetuses in Uttar Pradesh. Neelam Singh states that these figures are getting worse and says, “We believe that when the 2021 census is published, it will show that gender ratios are falling even faster.”
This problem, known as sex-selective killing or female infanticide, murder of newborn girls or it means learning their gender selectively and families terminating pregnancies accordingly. A 2011 study by the Central Statistics Office of India revealed that three million girls died in India due to female infanticide.
Illegal Gender-Selective Abortions
It is estimated that in the last 20 years in India, 10 million women’s pregnancies (500,000 every year) were terminated due to the fetus being female. Population Research Institute, India since 1990 with sex selective abortions found that approximately 15.8 million female babies died in the womb. Such abortions are illegal, but the law is often ignored.
The Indian government and child rights activists have implemented various projects and laws to combat gender imbalance and gender selective killing. For example, the National Preconception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (PNDT) Act of 1994 banned sex-selective abortions. Additionally, financial aid schemes were introduced to families to encourage them to give birth to daughters, and legal regulations were made to enable daughters to inherit their father’s property.
However, it is clear that these projects and laws are not enough, and the problem of gender imbalance and gender selective killing still poses a serious threat. Therefore, more efforts and awareness are required to solve this problem.
