Where the End Comes Before Birth

Abstract

Long after you have driven away from the cluster of villages around the Usilampatti belt of Madurai, the images of bright-coloured hair ribbons, fragrant jasmine flowers in neatly combed hair, deep vermillion bindis on the forehead and the silver anklets worn by little girls with sparkling, wide, intelligent eyes, remain. And return to haunt you again and again.

Even today, the ‘she’ of the human species is an unwanted entity in these villages. Unwanted enough to bring down the female ration in the population. A 50,000 population sample survey done in November 1998 by the Society of Integrated Rural Development (SIRD) in 88 villages in the Usilampatti region, infamous for both female infanticide and now, foeticide, clearly shows the declining sex ratio in the age group 0 to 5 years. The survey shows that the female-male ratio in these villages hovers around 879-880 females to every 1,000 males.