HOW TO CONFRONT EVIL

Indian wedding vow: we will not abort daughters (Dean Nelson, The Times, February 12th, 2006)

Couples in the western Indian state of Gujarat have added a promise to avoid “female foeticide” to their wedding vows amid growing concern about the effects of selective abortion on the balance between the sexes.

At a mass wedding last week 45 couples, including members of the wealthy Patel clan, swore “never to have a sonography (scan) to find out the sex of our children”. Describing the practice as illegal, they pledged to “co-operate with all activities to curb the menace of female foeticide”.

The decision of the Patels, influential in Gujarat’s diamond industry, to publicise the new vows was remarkable. The state now has only 878 girls aged six and under for every 1,000 boys.

The declining ratio further up the age scale has had a startling impact, with a scarcity of marriageable women blamed for a rise in bride trafficking. After failing to find a wife in their own social class, many Patels are turning to bride dealers who charge up to £1,250 for a spouse from Gujarat’s tribal areas.

Ila Pathak, of the Ahmedabad Women’s Action Group, said that the problem had been fuelled by a mixture of Hindu tradition, male chauvinism and greedy, callous doctors.

The impetus for abortions, often carried out in the first few weeks of pregnancy, usually comes from the fathers. “A girl is not valued because only a son can perform the death rituals which send the dying father to heaven,” said Pathak. “Without them they go to hell. It is in the Hindu texts.”

A study published in the medical journal The Lancet last month claimed that 10m female foetuses had been aborted in India in the past 20 years. It pointed the finger at educated middle-class women.

Not more laws. Not more education. Not more research. Vows.