By IANS,
New Delhi: The patriarchal Indian society has a deep-rooted bias against the girl child and changing this mindset is essential to curb female foeticide, experts said here Thursday.
Speaking at a national consultation on women-friendly laws at the India Habitat Centre, National Rural Health Mission Director Anuradha Gupta said that “(only) sanctioning of the law is not the solution of the problem as these practices are deep rooted in the mindset of the people”.
Ganesh Prasad Singh of Adithi, an organisation dealing with female foeticide in Bihar, said that the awareness raising had to start at an early stage, calling for inclusion of the subject in the school syllabus at Class 10 level.
In India, the northern states of Haryana and Punjab have traditionally been amongst the states with worst child sex ratio.
Haryana’s State Commission for Women Chairperson Sushila Sharma claimed that the child sex ratio in her state was increasing due to combined efforts of the government and citizens.
“The government has rewarded 18 villages so far, where a notable improvement in child sex ratio was observed,” she said.
Sharma added that the bias against the girl child were even more prevalent in urban areas, despite better education facilities and living standards.
Tilak R. Sarangal, principal secretary at Punjab’s department of women and child welfare, said that the problem was also aggravated by the slow judicial system of the country.
“The judicial system has many loop holes. It takes very long before the guilty (in female foeticide cases) could be punished and, many times, this allows the culprits to escape,” he said.