There is a growing focus on generating evidence on violence against informal women workers across the world.

“Women hold up half the sky”, the Chinese saying goes. But we need to recognize that it is not an equal world for women, globally and in India.

The high female infant mortality rates (Miller, 1985); the practice of female infanticide (Krishnaswamy, 1988); the neglect of female children with regard to access to health services, nutrition, (Sen and Sengupta, 1983 and education (Mankekar, 1985); and the sexual abuse of girls (Bhalerao, 1985

How does one analytically locate the social phenomenon manifested in India during the last few years since the advent of sex-selection technology in the mid- 70s?