Gender discrimination against girl child is a sin against humanity. If the trend of declining ratio of girls against boys continues, the society will be faced with disaster of far reaching consequences. Child sex ratio in 2001 was 941 female against a thousand males which fell to 859 in 2011 according to latest census. In other words, it means that against one thousand males we have a shortage of 141 females. This is incredible and if allowed to continue, consequences will be grave. Health Department is seized of this problem and has ordered closure of 67 illegal clinics in Kashmir and 22 in Jammu. But notwithstanding the punitive measures taken by the Department the evil of female foeticide seems difficult to eradicate. This is what the report of the Committee on Subordinate Legislation of the Legislative Assembly has said. It has also reported that the Selection, Determination Prohibition and Regulation Rules, 2006 don’t seem to have been implemented strictly on ground. Female foeticide is a crime. No religion allows it and some have declared it a sin against humanity. Haryana and Punjab also were faced with the problem but strong intervention by the government and full fledged implementation of rules that prohibit pre-natal determination of sex did succeed to arrest the decline in female ratio. We implore the government to take strictest possible measures in enforcing the law of prohibition and abortion on gender bias basis. The regional Health Officers should be held responsible for ensuring the law in this connection.
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel