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In a country where males rule supreme, woman struggle to have voices heard
The Australian - March 29, 2010
Amanda Hodge – Seema Das is a forthright, educated mother of one daughter in India, although if fate had been allowed to follow its course she would have two girls.
Ten years ago, she terminated her second pregnancy after an ultrasound test confirmed the fears of her husband and his family. Seema (not her real name) had conceived a girl in a country where daughters are often viewed as a financial drain.
The UN Development Program this month estimated up to 42 million girls in India every year are lost to sex-selective abortions, infanticide or neglect.
Women's groups celebrated a substantial political victory this month when India's parliamentary upper house voted for 33 per cent of state and federal seats to be reserved for female candidates.
The bill must make it through the Lok Sabha where opposition to a women's quota is stronger, particularly among parties representing India's Dalits (untouchables), scheduled (lower) castes and Muslims, who fear the legislation will dilute the number of seats reserved for their groups.
At a post-parliamentary celebration in Delhi attended by some of the country's women's movement, National Federation of Indian Women general secretary Annie Raja conceded the battle was barely half won.
"It has taken 63 years (since independence) for Indian women to gain just 10 per cent representation in parliament," she said.
"We're not in a position to express our views at the time of policy formulation and decision-making and that's not good. Our issues are being neglected."
Some analysts suggest the women's quota is merely a canny way of creating a new vote bank for the national parties and breaking the power of the caste-based parties.
But Raja said female participation in parliament was the key to a social revolution. "India is a country where men dominate in every sector of life. The real issue is not women coming to 181 seats (out of 545 in the Lok Sabha) but men having to vacate them."
Mother of two Usha Rani Harit, 38, who spoke while queueing for the lower-caste registration card she hopes will help finance her 17-year-old daughter's higher education, welcomes the reforms but fears the high illiteracy rate among Indian women would present challenges.
"Women can do it as well as men but it will take time," she said as arguments broke out in the line about women's place. "Women must be as literate as men."
Usha had heard nothing of the quota debate. She said she had been too busy shepherding her daughter through her Year 12 exams and on to tertiary studies.
"My daughter is intelligent and I would like her to study as much as her brain and her resources allow," she said, adding she would not allow any pressure on her to marry before she has established economic independence.
Despite her modest means, Usha typifies the growing number of workers seeking advancement through education.
But she is still a minority in her village on the edge of New Delhi. Women struggle to resist pressure for sons from their extended families. "I have many women friends who maybe have a daughter or two and a third time they don't want to have a girl so they go in for an ultrasound and if it's a girl they get an abortion," she said.
Sex-selection tests and abortions are illegal in India but the laws are rarely enforced. Some Indian doctors are said to get around discussing the sex of a fetus by handing out blue or pink lollies or candles to the parents.
Others advertise ultrasound services with slogans such as "Spend 500 rupees now and save 50,000 rupees later" – a reference to the dowry parents must pay to a groom's family.
The practice has led to the most serious gender imbalances in wealthier states such as Maharashtra, Haryana and Punjab where families can afford ultrasounds and abortions.
The national average is 108 boys for every 100 girls born, well above a naturally occurring ratio.
Perversely, the desire for smaller families among well-educated Indians is contributing to the problem. Seema Das, now 37 and unable to conceive any more children because of complications following her 1999 abortion, denies her husband or her parents-in-law forced her to terminate.
But with no sons born into her husband's family – and Seema adamant she only wanted two children – the pressure to produce an heir was intense.
"What I wanted was for my husband to say 'carry on' (with the pregnancy). Instead he said 'as you wish' but you will have to have a third child," Seema said. "You can say that nobody pressured me but nobody supported me either."
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