British Indians 'aborting unwanted girls'

LONDON: If you think that selective sex abortion is only widespread in India, you are wrong. It is a practice which is prevalent in Britain too, but among the women in the Indian community.

Researchers at Oxford University have carried out a probe and found that a number of Indian-born women living in Britain are aborting unwanted daughters in order to have more boys -- only because of cultural pressure.

According to their findings, nearly 1,500 girls have gone missing from the birth statistics in England and Wales since 1990 -- that is, one in ten girls missing from the list for Indian-born women having their third or fourth child.

"There's a shortfall of girls born to Indian women compared with what would be expected. What I have found is that the proportion of boys over girls has increased over time... it's increased in a way that's not normal.

"The most probable explanation seems to be sex selective abortion by a minority of mothers born in India," lead researcher Sylvie Dubuc, a population expert, was quoted by 'The Times' as saying here.

In fact, the researchers found that many Indian women in Britain are undergoing the sex selective abortion in their home country -- a practice outlawed in India since the 1980s.

Ramesh Mehta, the President of the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, said that such biases could also prevail in Britain.

"We are aware that it does go on in India. We are surprised and shocked that it's possibly happening in women who are living in this country of Indian origin. We think this is very unfortunate in this day and age -- it's shocking.

"It's very hard to say why this could happen. It could be that the parents themselves feel the pressure to have sons, because of culture or background, rather than from family," he was quoted as saying.