Family Planning Policies and Resultant Discrimination against the Girl Child - A Study of India and China

Anjana Agarwal, National Law School of India University

25 August 2008, 1500, Moot Court

While Anjana’s compatriot focuses on India and Brazil, Anjana takes on two countries who together make up more than a third of the world’s population and are also quickly growing. The third of a series of essays focusing on Women and children, Anjana picks out a common thread in the two societies characterised by a tradition favouring men and its effects on young girls. Watch Anjana present her perspective to the clash between law, culture and society.

Abstract

To check their rapidly growing populations, China and India, the two most populous countries of the world, instituted extensive family planning programmes so as to ensure a smooth path to development. Both countries, however, like most others in their region have a strong son preference. As fertility came to be reduced with the implementation of family planning laws, this preference for sons resulted in widespread killing of female foetuses and infants, and thus resulted in life-threatening discrimination against the girl child. Consequently the sex ratio of these countries increased tremendously, leading to a ‘social calamity’. This paper argues that the mere enactment of laws is not enough to deep-rooted traditional mindsets, and legal action must be accompanied by corresponding change in societal thinking.

Anjana is a fourth year LLB student studying in the National Law School of India University. She is interested in women’s issues, feminisim and Feminist Jurisprudence, Law and Economics, Intellectual Property Law, Law and Poverty and Human Rights Issues.