Campaign against Pre-Birth Elimination of the Female Foetus

The Datamation Foundation initiated an advocacy, sensitisation, and information campaign to inform Indians that sex selection is illegal. Radio and video are tools to reach rural people not able to access the internet. In addition, staff and volunteers have traveled to rural areas to educate people about PBEF, using a portable computer called a "computer thela", which is taken to the Panchyat level for the dissemination of information. Reaching people from urban areas with the anti-PBEF message has mostly involved information and communication technologies (ICTs). Young people are addressed through internet centres and cyber cafes; posters bearing the campaign message are included on various websites. Printed versions of these posters are also erected near private hospitals and nursing homes. List servers specific to the medical community, as well as groups that deal with women's issues, are intended to share various developments about sex selection. Parliamentarians and law makers also receive these electronic updates.

Central to the campaign was the launching of a portal, which was supported technically by UNICEF, UNFPA, Population Council, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (Govt. of India), and Plan International. The site provides information and encourages action against PBEF. Among other actions, visitors to the site may file official (government) complaints against medical agencies or physicians whom they suspect might be carrying out PBEF.

Other site features/goals of the portal include:

• Sensitising the Indian society about sex selection tests and "the impending gender crisis". Advocating greater gender equity.
• Increasing awareness of the 1994 Pre-Natal Diagnostic Act (PNDT), as well as the recent amendment passed by Parliament that bans any form of sex selection testing.
• Sensitising people about the status of women in Indian society (of which selective sex abortion of the female foetus is one of the indicators, apart from violence and trafickking).
• Exchanging information and building dialogue among stakeholders.
• Increasing compliance with laws against PBEF among maternity homes, nursing homes, ultra-sound clinics, and radiologists.
• Sensitising the medical community about the ethics of the medical profession and the role physicians ought to be playing in improving the population crisis as well as sex ratios in India.
• Tracking inter-generational change among women.
• Highlighting achievements of successful women from different walks of life.
• Making technical materials and resources available.
• Building e-governance modules that can help identify ultrasound clinics and nursing homes carrying out illegal sex determination tests.

Future implementation strategies for the campaign include:

• Consolidating the knowledge and resource sharing mechanism among stakeholders, women's groups, international development agencies, and donors
• Coordinating community radio and video channels and actively seeking to disseminate knowledge in areas with the most unbalanced sex ratios (Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, AP, Karnataka, UP). Community-based communication strategies such as use of mobile vans to show films, portable computers with big screens, and internet access for sharing internet radio as well as video are planned
• Establishing 4 new channels in the portal:
  1. channel on medical ethics that features the perspectives of the medical community on PBEF and sex selection. The issue of registration of ultrasound machines across the country on nationwide basis will be a focus
  2. channel on inter-generational change experienced by families
  3. dialogue among parliamentarians, elected officials, law-makers, judiciary, health administrators, health policy-makers, and health practitioners - "so that there is constant exchange of information and data"
  4. training and human resource channels

Development Issues

Population, Women, Gender, Children, Health, e-Governance.

According to statistics provided by organisers, sex ratios are declining in various parts of India. Specifically, the ratio of girls compared to the boys in the age group of 0-6 fell from 945 in 1991 to 927 in 2001. In some of the posh areas of Delhi such as Hauz Khas, Defence Colony, Model Town and Punjabi Bagh, there are fewer than 850 girls per 1000 boys.