By Matters India Reporter
New Delhi, July 27, 2019: Delhi state’s health minister says the practice of sex determination and sex-selective abortions is rampant among the rich and affluent families in the national capital.
The worst affected among Delhi’s 11 district is South Delhi that houses posh residential enclaves of the super-rich, Satyendar Jain, the minister, told a training program for Delhi State District Appropriate Authorities and the District Nodal Officers.
The minister urged the officials to be stringent and suspend the faltering clinics and doctors as prescribed under the under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act.
The July 26 training was organized by Vanishing Girls Campaign and Girls Count under the Indian unit of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) in collaboration with the Delhi government’s Directorate of Family Welfare, Health and Family Welfare Department.
The minister asked the District Appropriate Authorities and the District Nodal Officers to take their roles seriously in implementing the PCPNDT Act.
Jain said he felt sad that Delhi is listed third from the bottom in the list of child sex ratio in India.
Four sessions on technical training on unpacking sections of the law, recent amendments, code of conduct for appropriate authorities, registration of centers, inspection of centers, search, seizure and sealing of the diagnostic centers, conduct of decoy, and, filing a case.
Sanjay Parikh, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court, exclaimed “It is a genocide,” during his technical training session with the District Appropriate Authorities and the District Nodal Officers. He noted that unless the appropriate authorities and nodal officers do not take any action, no ground work will be achieved.
Uday Prakash Warunjikar, Vice President, Bar Association of India, highlighted in his training that implementation of the law has been slow. While the technology is now allowing gender to be tailored before the pregnancy via IVFs and other medical advancements, the authorities are still struggling to regulate illegal gender reveal via sonography ie. Ultra-sound scans.
Varsha Deshpande, another lawyer, reiterated that if the authorities implement the law in the right manner, millions of our girl-child will be saved and the change in the child sex ratio will achieved for sure. She shared her practical experience of implementing the PCPNDT in the state of Maharashtra.
Ifat Hamid, Consultant (Gender), federal Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Division, shared about the operating guidelines related to the 6-month training on the PCPNDT act that the state governments across India should provide to the diagnosticians and doctors.
Nutan Mundeja, chairperson, State Appropriate Authority, noted in her welcome address that the families who choose to commit gender-based feticide, affects the not only them but the larger community of the state of Delhi.
In her closing remark she said, “As the Delhi government we are happy to be able to conduct this workshop. It gave an opportunity to our District Appropriate Authorities and the District Nodal Officers (PNDT) to interact with experts on the matter, and gave us a chance to hear them out on the issues they face in the implementation of the act. We look forward to further strengthen the implementation with the help of those who want to come along…”
Rizwan of Girls Count noted,” This kind of collaboration and training was much needed because last 3 years we have seen the implementation of the PCPNDT act as not been so effective in Delhi, …the sample registration system data is declining towards 850 girls… and that’s why we think that it is important to encourage the district officials and give them the support that the civil society can provide. We want to implement the PCNDT Act in a collaborative manner in Delhi and this was the motive of this consultation.”
Anushree Bernard of the Vanishing Girls campaign said, “Changing mindsets alone cannot improve the declining Child Sex ratio. We need a fierce implementation of the PCPNDT Act to ensure that the perpetrators who conduct sex determination do not get away”