A study suggests Indian women in the UK are aborting unborn daughters so they can have more boys.
An 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. "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. 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.
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.
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.
FACTS AND FIGURES
Female infanticide occurs in 80% of Indian states
Worst-affected states include wealthiest areas
927 girls born for every 1,000 boys
Infant mortality rate: 60/1,000
Source: Unicef
December 2007
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