Kashmir's shocking rise in selective abortions

A shocking rise in female foeticide, especially in Kashmir has set off alarm bells in India - AFP 

SRINAGAR, India - India’s only Muslim-majority state is seizing ultrasound scanners and enlisting religious leaders in an effort to save unborn baby girls from a shocking rise in female foeticide. The issue has united politicians, clerics and social activists in Jammu and Kashmir, a state best known for the deep, blood-stained divides caused by a 20-year-old Muslim separatist insurgency against Indian rule. Provisional 2011 census data released at the end of March painted a bleak picture of India’s gender imbalance, with a national child sex ratio of just 914 females to 1,000 males, the lowest figure since independence in 1947. By far the most dramatic decline was in Jammu and Kashmir, where the ratio plunged to 859 girls for every 1,000 boys in the 0-6 age group, down by 82 points from 10 years ago. “We never expected such a drop,” admitted Yashpal Sharma, the Kashmir head of the National Rural Health Mission. The global sex ratio is 984 girls to every 1,000 boys, according to United Nations population data. But married women in India face huge pressure to produce male children, who are seen as breadwinners while girls are often viewed as a financial burden as they require hefty dowries to be married off. Full Story>>

Kashmir's shocking rise in selective abortions http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/20/kashmirs-missing-girls.html