Strong legislation but poor implementation continues to kill off girls

Apr 04, 2011

A law to curb the misuse of technology to determine the sex of the foetus, and thereby curb sex selective abortion, has now been in force for 14 years. So, why has India got the worst child sex ratio since Independence? Provisional census data revealing that the female-to-male child sex ratio is the worse since Independence, at 914 females under 6 years of age to 1,000 boys, has elicited calls for better implementation of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act (PCPNDTA), 1994 that regulates misuse of pre-conception and pre-natal diagnostic techniques for sex selection (the sex ratio at birth is still to be published).

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