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PUNJAB, INDIA, February 20, 2002: We are heading towards the greatest holocaust of unborn girls in human history, according to Sabu George, a girls’ rights campaigner. Girls are viewed as a burden in this community of farmers, where in the past some families would ask village midwives to kill a newborn baby if it turned out to be a female. Now because of ultrasound technology, they do not have to wait so long. A simple scan can reveal the sex of an unborn baby, and if it is a girl, the family is likely to force the mother to undergo an abortion. Sex determination tests were banned in 1994, but they continue to be performed and they are blamed for a dramatic drop in the number of girls. According to India’s 2001 census, nationally there are 927 girls for every 1000 boys up to the age of six, down from 945 in 1991. Affluent states in the north and west, where ultrasound clinics first sprang up, have the lowest figures. Punjab is at the very bottom, with just 793 girls for every 1000 boys. “As the shortage becomes more and more, you will find much, much greater violence against surviving women,” said George.

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