High female sterilisations questioned

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 27

The Economic Survey today lamented the practice of female sterilisations in the country, saying it was aiding gender inequality and needed to be urgently checked.
Speaking for women’s reproductive rights, the Survey tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley also derided stress on sterilisation as the chosen means of contraception in the country, urging the government to promote other alternatives for contraceptives that include condoms and injecting uterine devices.
“Sterilisation constitutes 75 per cent of India’s contraceptive use. This is unparalleled in any country of the world. The closest is Latin America where it constitutes 40 per cent of all contraceptive use,” says the Economic Survey mentioning low child sex ratio (918 per 1,000 boys) as another major contributor to India’s abysmal position on the Gender Inequity Index compiled by the UNDP.
While India is in the bottom 25 per cent of all countries globally on the Human Development Index (a measure of life expectancy, mean years of schooling and Gross National Income per capita), it is in the bottom 20 per cent countries on GII measured by factors such as reproductive health, empowerment and labour market participation.
On gender equality, the Human Development Report ranks India at 127 in 152 nations, with a GII value of 0.563, the poorest in all BRICS nations. For this poor rating, the Survey notes the high proportion of female sterilisations as a cause.
“Unfortunately in India, there is an increasingly disproportionate emphasis on female sterilisations. Tubectomies accounted for 97.5 per cent of all sterilisations in India in 2013-14 as against 78.6 per cent in the 1980s. This trend runs counter to our goals of achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment,” states the Survey in the wake of recent deaths of 16 women in a botched-up tubectomy camp in Chhattisgarh.
Similar concern has been voiced by the policy document on the fact that India’s Human Development Index value is just 0.586, positioning the country at 135 in 187 nations which the UNDP ranked in its latest report.
“We have the lowest HDI ranked BRICS nation. While China improved its rank by 10 places between 2008 and 2013, India’s position improved by just one rank. Our HDI value is also below the average of countries both in the medium developed nations (HDI value 0.614) and South Asia (0.588),” says the Survey asking the government to pull up its socks.
HDI values reflect a country’s position on three vital parameters — long and healthy life, education and living standard.