Catholic World News News Feature
India offers free education for girls, to curb sex-selection abortion September 22, 2005
In an innovative step to curb the widespread practice of sex-selection abortion, the federal government in India has decided to offer free education for any girl who is her parents' only child.
The government will not only provide tuition-free education for female children, through post-graduate studies, but will also provide stipends for female students in high school and higher education.
The generous scholarship program is a response to studies that show that Indian couples frequently abort female children, particularly if they already have a girl child. Indian law already forbids tests to determine the gender of an unborn child, but doctors routinely disclose that information in the course of a normal pregnancy examination, and since access to abortion is virtually unrestricted in India, the law has not substantially cut down on the number of female babies aborted.
Recent scrutiny of birth records at eight major hospitals in Delhi revealed the extent of sex-selection abortion. For parents having their second baby after a girl child, there were only 558 girls for every 1,000 boys. After two girls the ratio was even more pronounced, with only 219 girls for every 1,000 boys.
A national census conducted in 2001 found that there were only 800 girls to every 1,000 boys in some sections of India. The preference for boy babies is rooted in cultural prejudice, and concerns about the high costs of dowries demanded of women's families at marriage.
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