Seven years' jail for families of Indian women who abort girls

Entire families could be jailed for up to seven years for pressuring women into aborting female foetuses, in a move designed to halt India's widening gender imbalance.

Girls are considered a financial burden in India, where families fear the cost of paying illegal but common dowries when daughters marry.

Campaigners believe that up to eight million unborn girls have been aborted in India in the past decade. UN figures show that female infants are twice as likely to die in India before the age of five. The number of girls born per thousand boys has declined from 976 in 1961 to 914 in 2011, according to census statistics.

Under current laws to prevent "sex selection" and female feticide, doctors involved in the practice face punishments ranging from a 1,000 Rupee (pounds 12) fine to three years' imprisonment. In the past 10 years, only 463 offenders have been prosecuted. India's Ministry for Women and Child Development now wants to turn the focus on the family networks which put pressure on women to abort unborn girls.

A senior official, who asked not to be named, said: "It is important to make families equally accountable. The families go to clinics performing sex selection tests, so logically they initiate the process of sex selection and female feticide. We are seeking amendments in the present law to make families equally liable for the offence. Nothing has been decided but it is likely there will be a jail sentence between six months to seven years. The jail term will depend on whether the family was just involved in sex selection or both selection and subsequent abortion of the foetus"

Campaigners have already voiced concerns that the proposals, which have been sent to the law ministry for drafting, would make women more vulnerable.

Ranjana Kumari, of the Council for Social Research, said pregnant women already suffered intense harassment, and sometimes violent attacks, from husbands and in-laws to have ultrasound sex determination tests and abortions. Under the proposals for collective punishment, they could also be blamed for any prosecutions of family members.

"This should be looked at with great care," said Ms Kumari. "The woman is blamed for producing a female child. She faces discrimination, desertion and to some extent violence. So to talk about punishing the family is a risky proposition. The women will get the blame and be penalised."

She added: "The fundamentals of female empowerment will be absolutely tampered with. Control over our own bodies is a fundamental right for women."