At the same time, the women said it was the pressure from their family and society that they agreed to conceive for the third time.
In the study done by Center for Awareness and Promotion (CAP - Nepal) at Thapathali Maternity Hospital from July 2012 to June 2013, 123 women stated that they were still unaware of the sex of the fetus, while 123 said that they had son in their womb. Only 16 women said that they had daughters and the rest said they were yet to known about the sex. [break]
“The women said that they would not have to conceive again if one of the two children born earlier was a son. Since they had daughters, they felt moral pressure to give birth to a son,” said Hira Dahal, president of the organization. “Of the total women, 123 said they had male fetus, while only 16 said that they had female fetus. The disparity was the result of abortion of female fetus,” she added.
Sharing the study at a program in the capital on Friday, Dahal said that the study was conducted side-by-side the counseling sessions organized for these women. “They were hesitant to talk about family and social pressure in the beginning. After counseled for hours, they opened up and admitted that they would never discriminate between a son and a daughter if their families and relatives would not mind it.”
Preference of son over daughter is a bitter social reality and sex selective abortions have been rife for long, though it is legally punishable. Civil Code 2020, allows abortion of a fetus of up to 12 weeks with the consent of the pregnant woman. Likewise, the code prohibits sex determination of a fetus. While sex determination draws imprisonment of 3 to 6 months, carrying out illegal abortion leads to a jail term of up to 2 years.
Bhanu Bhakta Acharya, a researcher in the study, said lack of punishment to medical practitioners who handle sex selective abortions has let the crime go unabated. “Nursing homes and hospitals are promoting such abortions in lack of effective monitoring or mechanism to curb the crime. We have not heard of even single case of anyone being booked in such cases though we know sex selective abortions are common right here in the capital,” he said.
The decline in sex ration 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.
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