[zzze]

Assalamu alaykum

A study suggests Indian women in the UK are aborting unborn daughters so they can have more boys, the BBC's Asian Network has learned.

The Oxford University study suggests 1,500 girls are "missing" from the birth statistics in England and Wales from 1990 to 2005.

It shows the proportion of boys compared with girls born to Indian-born mothers has increased since the 1970s.

Dr Sylvie Dubuc said this could be due to "sex selective abortion".

Dr Dubuc, who studied birth rates of different ethnic groups in England and Wales, found that in the 1970s 103 boys were born for every 100 girls.

Between 2000 and 2005, the proportion of boys over girls had increased abnormally to 114 boys for every 100 girls, she said.

Britain's unwanted girls

Figures showed 26,662 babies were born to Indian-born women in England and Wales from 1990 to 2005, excluding the first or second child.

"According to my calculation around 1,500 girls are missing... it's significant compared to the total number of births," Dr Dubuc said.

She said the most probable explanation seemed to be sex selective abortion by a minority of mothers born in India.

One British woman, who spoke to the BBC anonymously, said she had an abortion after a doctor in India found she was to have a fourth daughter.

"Unfortunately it was another girl. My husband and I thought the burden would probably be too much and the pressure when I got back home. So we decided to terminate," she said.

In Indian culture, the preference for boys over girls is well known.

Getting rid of baby girls is a practice that is so widespread in some parts of India that it has skewed dramatically the ratio of males to females.

Female foeticide, as it is known, has been illegal in India since the early 1980s.

It is also illegal to offer scans to find out the sex of a baby - but the law is regularly flouted.

Undercover filming

To see how difficult it is to find a doctor willing to carry out the service, the BBC sent a British couple to one of Delhi's top gynaecologists, Dr Mangala Telang - a doctor recommended by the British High Commission.

Dr Telang, an IVF treatment specialist, has practised in some of Delhi's top hospitals and has actually campaigned against female foeticide calling it an "evil" crime.

The BBC had heard that her clinic would offer ultrasound scans to determine the sex of a baby - even though a sign in the waiting room clearly said it was illegal.

Secret filming shows that within minutes Dr Telang agreed to perform the scan. She warns the couple not to tell anyone about what they were doing as it is illegal.

The couple also ask whether, if the unborn child is a girl and they decide to abort the baby, she could recommend someone to carry out a termination.

Dr Telang says: "Yes, I can recommend someone."

In the ultrasound room, another doctor tells the couple the "good" news that it is a boy. Both doctors had broken several laws.

When the BBC told the doctors about the evidence, they denied doing anything wrong.

Dr Telang said she was not in the room when the scan was carried out. But she is clearly seen in the room congratulating the couple.

Cultural pressures

An estimated seven million girls have gone missing from India's population over the last 25 years.

Some of them will have been killed after they were born, or allowed to die within their first few days. But most of them will have been aborted.

Selective abortion is happening all over India as ultrasound machines - which carry out the scan - have become cheaper, but it has always been worst in Punjab and Gujarat.

It is impossible to say how many British women are travelling to India for terminations.

But the UK has a substantial community with strong links to, and often the same pressures as, families in India.

BBC NEWS | UK | UK Indian women 'aborting girls'

[Jamroll]

These people are so dumb. What are people going to with all their doctor sons? Arrange civil partnerships with each other?!

[ChotooMotoo]

Originally Posted by Jamroll

These people are so dumb. What are people going to with all their doctor sons? Arrange civil partnerships with each other?!

I guess. Maybe they plan on outsourcing to countries where women are prevalent.

[zzze]

asslamu alaykum

Originally Posted by Jamroll

These people are so dumb. What are people going to with all their doctor sons? Arrange civil partnerships with each other?!

Did you see the documentary on china's missing children? Due to the one child policy parents either abort or sell their baby daughters (usually abort) so now there's like a gazzilion men without wives....so they resort to paying an ''agent'' to steal one off the streets for them, or parents buy a child bride for their son and wait for her to mature.

[sally]

i cant read the word abortion without feeling sick to my stomach, no lie

[Timbit]

Astaghfirullah.

[Pushpa]

It is sickening; but why do people do it? Because of cultural crap that dictates that girls are a burden because they need to be married off with a dowry, and sons are valuable because they 'take care' of their parents when they're elderly. Regardless of the fact that most of the time, daughters who have married and moved away STILL look after their parents more than their brothers who live in the same house, and 9 times out of 10 it's the son's WIFE who's taking care of them, rather than the son himself.

I was listening to a programme on Radio 4 about it the other day and apparently now in some parts of northern India the male-female ratio has already reached such proportions that people are practising fraternal polyandry - i.e. one woman being married to several brothers at the same time. In fact a movie was made about a woman in a community in precisely this situation a few years ago.

[Timbit]

One time when my aunt was pregnant, she went for her check-up and apparently they said at the hospital that they had a new policy where they don't tell you the sex of your baby before its born. And my aunt thought that it might have something to do with people aborting once they find out. Hmmmm.

Also, my other aunt had a stillbirth once (prematurely gave birth at home) and the police officers who came to investigate wanted to make sure we hadn't killed him. Too bad I wasn't there. I would've told them "We would only have killed him if he were a girl, duh."