Poor sex ratio in Chandigarh raises concern

Naina Mishra

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 24

The city has seen a skewed sex ratio at birth in the past five years as 838 females per 1,000 males were born in 2020-21, while 981 females were born in 2015-16.

This was revealed under the National Health Family Survey-5 profile of the UT. The overall sex ratio (females per 1,000 males) is 918 for the urban population and 868 for the rural.

The sex ratio at birth is a crucial index to determine that fewer girls are born in comparison to males in the region. This is certainly not a positive trend as it points towards a possibility of female foeticide. Prof Rajesh Gill, Sociology Dept, PU

Experts have expressed concern over the trend and have hinted at the possibility of abortion before birth through sex determination tests.

Prof Rajesh Gill from the Department of Sociology, Panjab University, said, “The sex ratio at birth is a crucial index to determine that fewer girls are born in comparison to males in the region. This is certainly not a positive trend as it points towards a possibility of female foeticide.”

Female foeticide, by definition, is the practice of aborting a foetus when a person finds out that the foetus is female after undergoing a sex determination test known as a prenatal diagnostic test.

Professor Gill said, “We have conducted studies in the past in the border districts of Haryana and Punjab and found out that mothers of unborn child used to go outside in peripheral areas and other cities to get a sex determination test although this is completely against the law. It needs to be explored why the sex ratio is falling in the city.”

The National Health Profile-2019, the annual health data publication of the Ministry of Health, also revealed that Chandigarh had the worst rural sex ratio. The profile stated that Chandigarh also had the second lowest rural sex ratio (690) nationally.