Hyderabad, April 2: The notion of considering girl as a burden instead of considering dowry as an evil has resulted in female foeticide. The number of girls compared to boys is dropping down as we believe that son brings prosperity and the girl takes away joy.
In the age of darkness in Arabia people used to bury their daughters alive as they thought them to be the cause of disgrace the reason was that at that time sex of the foetus could not be determined before birth.
The latest census data show that materialism has reached to such an extent that instead of viewing them as a blessing, we consider children as obstruction in our happy lives.
The overall sex ratio in the country is 940 women per 1,000 men and the situation of population below 20 is further grim.
The states of Kerala and Pondichery still have a better sex ratio with 1084 females per 1000 males in Kerala and 1038 females per 1000 males in Pondichery. In the rich states of the country particularly Punjab, Chandigarh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and the union territory Delhi, the population of women is declining. In Daman and Diu and Dadar and Nagar Haveli the situation is that there are only 618 and 775 females per 1000 males respectively.
If the situation continues, the day is not far when a substantial number of youth will have to live a single life and it is likely that the dowry seekers of today will have to pay dowry in order to make a girl his bride.
Though the trend is low in Muslims compared to other communities but this evil is creeping into the affluent Muslim families and salaried class. Inspite of that female foeticide is uncommon in most of the Muslim families as Islam doesn’t permit abortion instead it rewards parents with paradise for upbringing girl child.
Siasat report