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Is Ultrasound
ads in Canadian Punjabi newspapers promoting female abortion?
Toronto, Aug. 04, 2007
Surinder Singh
According to CBC News, the ads for ultrasound clinics are running
in two Punjabi-language newspapers, the Ajit Weekly, based in
Mississauga, Ont., and with a B.C. edition, and the Hamdard Weekly,
published weekly from Toronto, New York, Vancouver and California
are promoting the abortion of female fetuses.
One ad provides a phone number for BC Punjabi as well as English
speakers, who will help them to make appointments at Koala Labs,
an ultrasound clinic in Blaine, Washington. According to the CBC,
the ad states, "You are told the sex immediately."
According to a Statistics Canada census, in Surrey,
where nearly a third of the immigrant population is from India,
the sex-ratio was highly imbalanced. In 2003, for example, instead
of the normal ratio of 105 boys to every 100 girls, "there
were 109. In 2000, it was nearly 111, in 1999, 107, and in 1998,
110."
Charan Gill, of the Progressive Intercultural Community
Services Society, Surrey claims that these ultrasound
ads are being used to encourage sex-selection that results in
female children being aborted.
Gill, who fought against the newspaper ads for ultrasound clinics
15 years ago, stated, "It's really, really sad that some
newspapers, for sake of money, are misleading the public. The
end result is they will tell the sex of the baby so that people
that don't want baby girls can abort it."
An Ottawa-based family rights group said that
statistics suggest abortions targeting female foetuses are prevalent
in the Indian Canadian community, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp
reported.
Dr. Stephen Jones, who runs the Koala clinic
in Washington, said there's no proof of how couples are using
ultrasound data.
India:
In October 9, 2002, India's Supreme Court has ordered state governments
to enforce the law and punish clinics that advertise and promote
sex-selection abortions.
December 14, 2006, Sex-selective abortion continues to kill almost
7,000 of India’s unborn baby girls every day, an annual
United Nations report on children said.
“Nationwide, 7000 fewer girls than expected are born each
day, largely due to sex determination,” said the report
State of the World’s Children 2007.
“Since 1991, statistics reveal drastic declines in the
number of girl children in the most prosperous states and districts--as
much as 50-100 fewer girls per 1,000 boys than elsewhere.”
The national average, at 927, is well below the normal worldwide
average of 1,050 girls to every 1,000 boys.
In the Punjab and Haryana states, fewer than 800 girls are born
to every 1000 boys. Northern Punjab is one of the worst, with
just 798 girls for every 1,000 boys under the age of six, the
AFP reported.
Although the Indian government has made it illegal to perform
ultrasounds and abortions for the purpose of sex-selection, the
practice is widespread and shows no signs of slowing. Wealthier
populations are the worst offenders, since they can afford the
cost of testing for gender identification.
Another media group wrote: The idea that female children are
less desirable is based in the Indian tradition of arranged marriages
in which the bride's father must give a costly dowry to the family
of the groom at his daughter's wedding. One advertisement outside
of an ultrasound clinic summed it up, "Pay 500 rupees now
and save 50,000 later." In India women are often still looked
upon as second class citizens, receiving a lower level of education
and lower quality health care.
A worldwide gender imbalance of at least 200 million more males
than females, caused by the abortion of female babies, according
to 2005 world Statistics.
