"Female fetuses used to be discarded in wells"
It’s easy to fall into a guilted love with India. Arundhati Roy wrote that it is a country that “lives in several centuries at a time.” It’s the world’s most populace place spanning Bollywood to beggars, vibrant temples and pulsating clubs and silent ashrams tucked away by the snow-veiled mountains of the Himalayas.
It’s a place where I can walk into the most magnificent sari store, where the wild silks are sourced from West Bengal and each pleat is tailored to size, and walk out to see the bare bottom of a bone-thin child bathing beside his mother in a dirty park pond.
It's a place molded on the Hindu foundational concept of dharma, a notion of encompassing one's duty, righteousness, ethics, and the natural order of the universe; a place that communicates with symbols, stories, soul and the “seva” of selfless service, yet is laced with so much sadness. They say the caste system no longer exists; it was technically outlawed in 1950.
Only it’s the umbrella that withstands the monsoon rains and presides.
In this land where ancient rivers flow and sacred mountains rise, there is an unspoken horror—quiet devastation that claims the lives of countless girls buried beneath the weight of tradition, patriarchy, and the silence of society. The brutal and heartbreaking practice of femicide and infanticide in India, particularly the killing of female infants, is a stark reminder of the persistent value assigned to gender in a culture that has long been steeped in the concept of male superiority.
Though officially outlawed, this grim reality continues to permeate the lives of many families across the country, especially in rural and impoverished areas. To understand why it happens, we must unravel the layers of cultural expectations, financial pressures, and gender-based violence that converge to form the tragic fate of so many born and unborn girls.
In India, the birth of a daughter is often perceived as a financial burden, a ticking clock that chimes louder with every passing year. This burden is not one of choice but of circumstance. The deeply entrenched practice of dowry, where the bride’s family is required to pay a significant sum of money, property, or gifts to the groom’s family in exchange for marriage, places an unspeakable weight on the shoulders of the girl’s family.
The Hindu dowry system means that girls are too often seen as economic liabilities rather than cherished members of the family. In contrast to Muslim societies, where the dowry typically consists of a gift from the groom to the bride, Indian dowries involve the groom’s family demanding payment from the bride’s family. The financial strain of providing a dowry, which can amount to an entire life’s savings, compels some families to view their daughters as burdens. When a family cannot afford the dowry, their daughters may be abandoned, mistreated, or, in the most extreme cases, killed.
The tragic reality of infanticide and femicide escalated in India with the advent of ultrasound technology in the 1970s, imported from the West—a classic case of help leading to harm. While ultrasound technology was initially celebrated for its ability to detect health issues, it quickly became a tool for a far darker purpose. The ability to determine the gender of a fetus before birth led to an alarming rise in female feticide. Families desperate to avoid the financial burden of raising a daughter began to selectively abort female fetuses, seeing them as less valuable than their male counterparts.
The rates of female feticide skyrocketed. As a result, millions of girls were lost before they ever saw the light of day. Gender-based violence did not stop with the fetus; it continued after birth, as infant girls, sometimes even only days old, were discarded or killed, deemed unworthy of life.
In response to this widespread abuse, the Indian government banned gender-based sex-selective abortions in 1994 with the Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques Act (PNDT Act). The law prohibited the use of ultrasound for sex determination, but the deeply ingrained patriarchy in society remained unshaken. The law’s enforcement has been ineffective, and the illegal practice has continued, driven underground by those who profit from the black market. Now, the law mandates that two doctors must be present during an ultrasound, and the screen is turned away from the patient to prevent gender identification. Yet, even in the face of these regulations, the horrific practice endures in remote pockets of the country, where the desire for a son remains stronger than the will to protect daughters.
The black market for illegal sex-selective abortions thrives, and it is a devastating reality that the abortion of female fetuses continues to be widespread. Rural areas, where access to education, healthcare, and social resources is limited, suffer disproportionately. Female babies are still killed in some of these regions; their lives snuffed out before they can even take their first breath.
It is not only the girls lost before birth, but also those who survive yet find themselves fighting for survival in a world that does not want them. Abandonment, neglect, malnutrition, and violence await too many of India’s female infants and children. The stories of these girls are often swept under the rug, their cries unheard, as society continues to relegate them to the periphery.
The statistics are staggering but not enough to stir widespread outrage. According to the UN, India has one of the highest rates of female feticide in the world, with millions of girls lost to selective abortion. In a nation of 1.4 billion people, where every life should be valued, the deaths of countless girls remain unspoken, buried beneath layers of tradition, economic pressure, and patriarchal dominance. The fight against femicide and infanticide is not just a matter of legal reform but of changing the very heart of a society that views daughters as burdens rather than blessings.
There are unspoken ripple effects to this crisis, too.
“In areas outside of Delhi, female fetuses used to be discarded in wells,” Sunitha Krishnan, explains. “The laws changed, but the ratio of boys to girls became skewed. This led to the trafficking of girls from poorer states to fill the void.”
Sunitha, a name that means “one with good principals,” has dedicated her life to rescuing and rehabilitating victims of child sex trafficking in India. She explains that a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old girl might be brought to a different state with the promise of a better life.
“Then, men from other states would come and impregnate her, forcing her to have babies, preferably boys,” Sunita stresses. “It’s a horrific situation.”
Ruby Singh, a social worker with the Delhi-based Just Rights organization spans efforts to put a stop to this horrific act, notes that the dowry system is much more “taboo” than it used to be, but in places where it is still common, femicide is not outside the norm.
“If a family can’t afford the dowry, it sometimes leads to tragic outcomes, like the death of the daughter,” she says. “The government has made laws to prevent dowry, and if someone is caught giving or taking dowry, they can face imprisonment.”
It is a war fought in the wombs of mothers, in the homes of families, and on the streets of a country still coming to terms with the value of women in its midst. Until the day arrives when daughters are no longer seen as liabilities and when the lives of girls are no longer snuffed out before they have a chance to dream, the battle against femicide will rage on, silent but deadly, in the shadows of India’s complex social fabric.
Dr. Nancy Preet Kaur, who works across the country on women’s issues and wrote an influential book entitled Where There is No Doctor, accentuates that “India, with its vast size and diverse population, still has a long road ahead in achieving gender equality.”
However, steps are being taken and can continue to be amplified.
“Efforts to reduce female feticide in India have been multifaceted, combining stringent legal measures, awareness campaigns, social change, and grassroots initiatives. The Pre-Conception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act has played a crucial role. Alongside legal measures, widespread awareness campaigns like the ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’ initiative have been instrumental in promoting gender equality and highlighting the importance of the girl child,” Dr. Nancy tells me. “NGOs and government bodies have significantly contributed to this cause.”
Social changes have also made a difference, with urbanization and the growing participation of women in the workforce leading to more equitable gender norms and empowering women. Additionally, grassroots initiatives, such as the Khoj program and community-driven efforts like Arogya Doot in Gadchiroli, Maharashtra, have had a direct impact on reducing maternal and neonatal mortality rates while addressing the deep-seated issue of gender bias in local communities.
“The rise in urbanization and the growing participation of women, and women after they become mothers, in the workforce have contributed to the empowerment of women, leading to more equitable gender norms and reduced female feticide,” Dr. Nancy adds, without missing a beat.
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