Actors unite against female foeticide

MUMBAI: ‘Beti- India’s Missing Daughters’, is a cause against female foeticide taken up by ITA, (Indian Television Academy) and supported by the UN. Apart from Shabana Azmi, Diana Hayden, Yukta Mookhey and Dia Mirza, UN-PFA representative Radhika Kaul Batra will address the electronic and the print media on Saturday to create awareness about the rising female foeticides in the country.

Diana Hayden says, “Do you realise that we kill about five lakh girls in our country every year? What is more appalling is the fact that these killings don’t happen only in illiterate homes, but mostly done by educated middle-class women.

If this continues, two generations down, we will have an alarming rate of sexual abuses and rape cases. I was shocked to hear that women from the UK come down to get aborted. I was shocked to hear that most of these women abort when they are about 24 weeks pregnant!

I know of this woman who killed three of her babies and when the husband insisted on killing the fourth one, walked out on him. There has to be some stopping to this.

“The punishment for doctors who conduct abortions now is a maximum of five years and/or a fine of Rs 10,000. I think the punishment should be much worse than that. I feel strongly about this and am going to raise a voice against it.”

Smita Kharat, senior manager, ITA said, “We are holding a press conference so that media makes people aware of the things that are happening in our country. This is the only way we can think of stopping such atrocities.”