Sex-selective abortion continues to skew demographics and create oppressive conditions for women in parts of India

• The national average of births is 940 girls per 1,000 boys, while in some western states the number falls to as low as 871 per 1,000.
• Economic incentives compound cultural attitudes in the decision to abort, including the continued practice of dowry in rural areas despite its outlawing in 1961.
• The demographic disruption leads to increased oppression of women as they are trafficked to female-deficient areas, so new campaigns have led to increased numbers of girls in orphanages and public shaming of sex-selective aborters.

“People start planning their family in a rather regressive way – instead of counting their numbers, they start counting the children’s sex. What they want, they want. Anything else becomes collateral damage.”

Read the full story at Al Jazeera.

(Image Credit: Rafiq Maqbool/AP, via Al Jazeera)