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Data indicates poor enforcement of law to check female foeticide

Only 143 persons have been convicted till date under PC&PNDT Act that bans sex determination test

While the child sex ratio in the country is dipping, not much seems to have been done to check sex determination tests and selective abortions. Data for the whole country shows only 143 people have been punished for conducting sex determination tests since the enactment of the Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (PC&PNDT) Act in 1996. This number was disclosed by Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad in a written reply submitted to Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.

The state that has punished maximum number of offenders under the Act is  Maharashtra with 52 convictions, followed by Haryana (30), Punjab (26) and Rajasthan (22). States like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Uttarakhand have not punished a single person till date. Gujarat has convicted only four persons. These are the poor performing states as far as maintaining healthy sex ratio is concerned.

According to Census 2011, the Child Sex Ratio (0-6 years) has declined to 919 girls per 1,000 boys against 927 girls per 1,000 boys recorded in the 2001 Census. This indicates prevalence of pre-natal sex determination and consequent abortion of female foetuses, the minister said. Apart from conviction, other actions taken against violators also do not reflect commitment on part of authorities to bring offenders to book.

A total of 1,833 cases have been registered so far across the country, including Rajasthan (562), Maharashtra (527), Punjab (124), Gujarat (114), Haryana (90) and Uttar Pradesh (42) under the Act.

The number of medical licences of doctors cancelled till date stands at 65 for the whole country. The maximum number of such cancellations have taken place in Maharashtra (37), followed by Rajasthan which has cancelled 21 licences so far.

Maharashtra has seized total 662 ultrasound machine machines (unregistered/used for illegal sex determination tests) while Rajasthan has seized 371 machines so far. A total 1,242 machines have been seized across the country, informed the Union health minister.

The government of India, in order to make the law more stringent, has amended various provisions of PC&PNDT Rules. These pertain to sealing, seizure and confiscation of unregistered ultra-sound machines and punishment for unregistered clinics, regulation of use of portable ultrasound machine only within the registered premises besides restricting medical practitioners from conducting ultrasonography at maximum of two ultrasound clinics within a district.

In its innovative research series, ‘Advancing Women in India’, Catalyst provides an insightful profile of the challenges corporate India faces regarding the optimisation of its female talent.

It also recommends action steps for developing and advancing women in this crucial emerging market. The first report - Leadership Gender Gap in India Inc: Myths and Realities - focuses on building awareness, looking primarily at differences/similarities in workplace perceptions and experiences for women and men leaders working in multinational companies in India. Data used in the analyses come from the project on global leaders that Catalyst conducted in 2006-2008 with the Families and Work Institute, and from The Promise of Future Leadership: A Research Program on Highly Talented Employees in the Pipeline, conducted across 2007 - 2010.  In India, with a gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of approximately 7 per cent, and a projected talent gap, or a shortage of skilled labour to sustain this growth, of more than 5 million by 2012, it is alarming that India Inc continues to underutilise its female talent pool. India’s long-term economic health depends significantly on investment in and utilisation of female talent. Bringing women into the workplace is half the answer.  Creating an inclusive workplace - where all talent can thrive - is the answer. However, scaling the corporate ladder in India Inc continues to be an arduous task for women. Although women’s workforce participation has grown significantly (and faster than men in recent years), women represent only 36 per cent of the labour force-less than half that of men (85 per cent).

It is not about differences in work values and aspirations, but barriers to career advancement faced by women in India. We often hear that the reason women don’t advance as far in business or are more apt to leave workplaces is because they have different work values and goals.  We are also often told that women don’t aspire to leadership roles. Our data suggests otherwise. We found that men and women leaders had similar work place values and goals. Our analysis also draws attention to the fact that 97.2 per cent women and 95.6 per cent men aspired to a job with higher responsibility.  However, 70.4 per cent women and 54.6 per cent men reported downsizing their aspirations during their career thus far. Evidently, women encountered barriers to career advancement, including lack of role models, more than their male counterparts. Although women and men have similar aspirations vis-a-vis advancement, there are differences in what and who women know in the workplace, and that impacts their development and advancement.  We also found that men leaders were relatively more proactive in pursuing a job opening in the company if it interested them (24.3 per cent women compared to 40.4 per cent men).  Another myth in the workplace is around flexibility; that it is about accommodating the needs of a few employees, mostly women. Catalyst expertise suggests that work-life effectiveness is a mutually beneficial partnership between businesses and their employees (including both women and men). We found that leaders in India and Europe were relatively more likely to put job before family compared to their counterparts in the United States-67.8 per cent in India, 62 per cent in the United States, and 66.9 per cent in Europe.  Culling from decades of Catalyst expertise and recommendations from women and men leaders in business in India, a few considerations and questions to ask as organisations approach and improve their gender leadership gap: 

                                                                                                                                                                    November 5, 2013: 

  Despite boasting better education and living standards, India’s city-dwellers still have a lot to learn from their counterparts living in villages when it comes to respect for the girl child.

The female-male sex ratio in rural areas has been consistently higher than in urban India even decades before Independence, the latest Census data for 2011 shows.

 The sex ratio in rural India has remained consistently above 900 women for every 1,000 men since 1901. But the ratio in urban areas fell from 910 women in 1901 to about 858 on average over the next nine decades. It was only in 2001 that a turnaround was seen, with the ratio returning to 901. In 2011, the ratio was at a century high of 929 women for every 1,000 men.

SETTING AN EXAMPLE

 Kerala continued to set an example for the rest of the country when it comes to the sex ratio, which favours women at 1,084 women for every 1,000 men. Puducherry was another highlight with its ratio of 1,037 women.

Tamil Nadu rounded up the list of the top three States which have positive sex ratios, with 996 women for every 1000 men. South India has done well in general, with Andhra Pradesh also having a fairly balanced ratio of 992 women for 1,000 men.

Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli have the lowest ratio on the list, at 618 and 773 respectively. This is largely because a considerable portion of the population in the two union territories are highly-skilled migrant workers whose families remain in their native States.

But this doesn’t hold true for Chandigarh. The capital of Punjab and Haryana has just 817 women to show for every 1,000 men.

National capital Delhi also has some deep-seated issues with women, it would seem, judging by its poor sex ratio of 867.  The Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Sikkim and Punjab are the other laggard States, with less than 900 women for every 1,000 men.

 There are 78.8 million girls in the 0-6 years age group in the country, constituting 47.9 per cent of the population. Another 95.6 million girls are in the 11-18 years age bracket.

According to Census data, of the total women counted in the country in 2011, 42.9 per cent were never married, 48.9 per cent were married and 8.2 per cent were widowed, divorced or separated. The mean marriage age for women stood at 21.2 years. Among the major States, the highest mean age at marriage was 22.6 years in Kerala and the lowest was 20.3 years in West Bengal.

Every second child in India is malnourished; 79% children across the country are anaemic; and the child sex ratio is at the lowest ever with 914 girls for every 1000 boys. These are some of the findings in a report, released by Child Rights and You (CRY), that dwells on the abysmal state of children in the country. 

Every second child in India is malnourished; 79% children across the country are anaemic.