Unwanted sex: abortion. Infanticide. Preference for sons leads to the destruction of baby girls

[Ratna] protests when I point out the difference in her treatment of son and daughter. 'It is not that I do not love [Leela]. But my son has to earn, so education is important for him. He will support us in old age.' Leela will be given in marriage -- a heavy cost to [Vithal] and Ratna -- and will 'belong' thereafter to her husband's family. 'We will have no claim on her once she is married and goes away.' India's skewed sex ratio is itself an index of anti - female discrimination. The number of women per 1,000 males in the population has fallen steadily this century, from 972 in 1900 to 933 in 1981. The 1980s saw increases in two dreadful manifestations of social prejudice against girls: female infanticide, and the use of tests on the unborn (amniocentesis) to determine sex and abort the female foetus. In the Kallar community in Madurai, southern India, it became known that newborn girls were often fed poison berries to escape the ruinous effects of dowry. Of 640 families questioned, 51 per cent admitted to killing a girl baby within a week of birth. Villagers were reported as defending the custom: 'Better to snuff a life at birth than to suffer lifelong misery.' A local woman medical doctor agreed. 'These mothers have suffered so much, they don't want the pattern repeated in their own lives.' The same pattern is repeated in access to health services. Girl babies are taken to the doctor less often than boys: 63 per cent of cases of female sickness compared to 80 per cent of male, according to the National Institute of Nutrition. And, echoing Leela's grandmother, many parents think that education is wasted on girls, and anyway they are needed at home. The primary school drop - out rate is much higher than for boys. Much of the hard information about this grim scenario was brought to light as a result of the 1990 Year of the Girl Child. Now the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Co - operation) countries are planning a Decade of the Girl Child. And slowly there is change for the better. Leela's case typifies the change. Her mother Ratna began to wish, after all, that Leela could be literate. So for the past six months Leela has been coming to me for lessons in the evenings when we have both finished work. Already she can read aloud from the newspaper. She wants to learn how to use the sewing machine so that she can earn some money stitching. The sense of self - worth that this will bring to her is worth far more than what she will earn.