Up to 100 female foetuses found

2006-08-10 18:06

New Delhi - Health authorities have recovered scores of aborted female foetuses from a well in northern India, media reported on Thursday.

The site was discovered by police in the city of Patiala in Punjab state, which has one of the worst gender ratios in the country, newspapers reported.

The well was on a vacant plot next to a clinic run by a husband and wife, who had been illegally been involved in abortions for years.

Abortions

While abortions are not illegal in India, only a limited number of medical institutions are authorised to perform them.

The couple charged anywhere from 8 000 rupees to 15 000 rupees (R1 162 to R2 182) per abortion, the reports said.

Because the foetuses were so decomposed, investigators were unable to say exactly how many were recovered from the well but estimates ranged from 35 to 100.

Ultrasound centre raided

The investigators also raided an ultrasound scanning centre that was allegedly carrying out pre-natal sex determination tests and then directing pregnant women carrying girls to the clinic for abortion.

Indian doctors are banned by law from carrying out sex-determination tests if female foetuses will be aborted as a result.

But many couples still have such tests and then pay shady operators for abortions if the baby is female.

Girls a liability

Girls are considered a liability as parents have to put away large sums of money to be paid as dowry at the time of their marriages.

Centuries of tradition also demand that couples produce at least one male child to carry on the family name.

With only 798 girls for every thousand boys under the age of six, Punjab has the lowest gender ratio in India, where the average figure is 927 - still well below the worldwide average of 1 050 female babies.

A study by British medical journal the Lancet said this year that India may have lost 10 million unborn girls in the past 20 years, but Indian experts say the figure is not more than five million.

- AFP