Hira Dahal, president of Center for Awareness and Promotion Nepal (CAP-Nepal), started working pro-actively against gender-based violence and discrimination after what she experienced after the birth of her second daughter. [break]
Her second daughter was not welcome in the family. As Dahal had already given birth to a daughter, everybody in the family was hoping for a son.
Craze for son, often is the main reason why daughters are abhorred in the Nepali society, whether rural or urban, according to Dahal.
“In the rural areas, people produce children until they get a son. In the urban areas, they abort one after the other fetus, until they detect it to be a son,” she said.
CAP-Nepal recently released a study which depicts the scenario in the capital.
The study done among the expectant mothers at the Maternity Hospital in Thapathali, where mostly lower and middle-class families go for delivery service, revealed those who came for third time delivery already had two daughters.
Of the 288 women who were in the hospital for third time delivery wanted a son as they already had two daughters. In the study done over a period of one year, between July 2012 to June 2013, many women said they did not like to undergo sex determination of their fetus, Dahal said.
However, during the counseling session, 123 of the women said that they had a male child in their womb. Only 16 women shared that they had daughter, while 149 said they were yet to know the sex.
“The women said it was because of the pressure from their husbands, in-laws and relatives that they had agreed to deliver for the third time. Not having a son was like failing to fulfill the most important family responsibility for the women,” Dahal said.
According to Nutan Sharma, a gynecologist at Alka Hospital, women find themselves in a very helpless position when they are pressured to beget a son. “The women do not even have to tell us their problem in words. We can sense their despair at once. The women who already have one or two girl children are even more desperate for a son as that fully influences her future relationship with her husband and the family,” she said. “It is a huge social problem and it is not going to improve until and unless people correct their perceptions. What can a wife do when a husband wants a son from her?”
Agrees Durga Parajuli (name changed), an expecting mother at Maternity Hospital. The local of Chapagaun, Lalitpur said that she does not see any difference between a son and a daughter. However, her family would shower great love on her if she gave them a son. “I have a school going daughter. Another child, who was a daughter, too, died soon after she was born. I am very nervous this time as I do not know the sex of the baby yet,” she said. “My father also wanted a son but he never had one. We are five sisters. It depends on luck,” she added.
Sex determination and sex-selective abortion is legally punishable. While sex determination draws imprisonment of 3 to 6 months, carrying out illegal abortion leads to a jail term of up to 2 years. Abortion is legal in some conditions, however. Civil Code 2020, allows abortion of a fetus of up to 12 weeks with the consent of the pregnant woman.
The decline in sex ratio in cities compared to the villages, where there are no abortion services, was noticed in Census 2011. In urban areas, population of girls aged 0 to 10 is 5.7 percent less than that of the boys.
Gender expert Gyanu Chhetri remarked that the lack of punishment for the illegal act of determining sex and aborting fetus on that basis is a major reason behind the unregulated abortions at clinics and hospitals. However, she thinks lack of awareness as the root cause of the issue. “Preference of male child over female has always been there in our society. And despite the world going digital or modern, people have not changed in terms of preferring male child, in general,” she said.
“This notion is so deep rooted in the mind of the people that they simply want at least one male child in their family. When the first child is female, they are extremely worried whether the second child would be a son or not. Abortion of fetuses cannot be curbed until and unless people change their heart towards daughters.”
Sociologist Ganeshman Gurung thinks that the society has to challenge several long held beliefs.
“Many things are there. When they don´t have son, they feel insecure thinking who would take care of them in future. Similarly, they consider son as the inheritor of their property and religious beliefs also keep sons above daughters,” he said. “Such thoughts and beliefs have to be challenged. Girl empowerment programs have to be launched. Empowered women would not differentiate between son and daughters or at least the society cannot pressure them to go for son.”
Meanwhile, Dilshova Shrestha, who has been keeping 45 orphans and 48 helpless old mothers at Ama Ghar, old age home run by her in Ravibhawan, currently adds that she is so much thankful to her daughter for coming in her life. “Had it been a son, may be my husband would still allow me to live with him. That would prevent me from being useful for hundreds of needy mothers and orphans. I would have been living a very confined life.”
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