This chilling confession by a Rajasthani housewife is the highlight of a UN report dealing with declining girl-child ratio in India
NEW DELHI: She strangled her first two babies to death because they were girls, terminated two other pregnancies because the foetuses were female and lost two baby boys to infections acquired in infancy.
Married at 18, Ranu, from Rajasthan, is now fiercely protective of her only remaining offspring, a baby boy.
Yet she and her husband Muktar have no remorse about the fate of their "missing" daughters. "I will kill other children if they are girls," Ranu said, explaining that she is too poor to pay for their weddings.
All over Rajasthan and the rest of the country, baby girls are being eliminated either through sex-selective abortion or infanticide, according to a chilling report by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) released on Wednesday. "The girl child is killed by putting a sand bag on her face or by throttling her," the report quoted Ranu as saying.
"It is not a rare phenomenon. It happens without hindrance." But the study noted that Indian parents are now turning to more modern methods -- pre-natal sex selection -- to dispose of unwanted girls, resulting in skewed female-to-male ratios.
"Far from being a practice that occurs only among the poor and illiterate, the practice appears to be most prevalent in regions that boast high levels of educational attainment and relative prosperity," said the report, titled The Promise of Equality: Gender Equity, Reproductive Health and the Millennium Development Goals.
Francois Farah, head of Population and Development at UNFPA, blamed the phenomenon on what he calls an "unholy alliance" between a modern desire for smaller families, available and affordable pre-natal screening technology and abortion coupled with a strong preference for sons.
Truth in figures
*70 districts in 16 states and union territories have recorded a more than 50 point decline in the child sex ratio during 1991-2001.
*All India figures as per the the Census report was 993.
*In Haryana, Punjab, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat, the sex ratio has declined to less than 800 girls per 1000 boys.
*The Census report had indicated 861 per thousand boys in Haryana, 876 in Punjab, 821 in Delhi, 968 in Himachal Pradesh and 920 in Gujarat.
*As per UNPF, the ratio stands at a mere 770 in Kurukshetra district of Haryana, 814 in Ahmedabad and 845 in the South West district of Delhi, some of the most prosperous regions of the country.
*Rajkot in Gujarat showed a sudden decline from 914 in 1991 to 844 in 2001.
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