Click to play videoRohtak (Haryana): On International Women’s Day, CNN-IBN’s Special Investigation team travels across Haryana to bring you a story behind the latest Global Gender Gap Report that places India at a dismal 114 out of 128 countries.
“I have four children and have aborted four daughters,” says Sukhjeet.
Sukhjeet paid Rs 5,000 to kill each of her four unborn girls. She says it saved her family the burden of bringing up and marrying off girls into a society that has no place for its daughters.
“If I hadn’t aborted those four daughters then I would have had six daughters. How would I have get them married?” says Sukhjeet.
Across Haryana women like Surjeet still prefer to abort their baby girls.
Maina Devi gave birth to seven daughters and just one son, and her mother-in-law is yet to forgive her.
“I had wished for a son but I got a daughter. What can I do? I really cried hard when I gave birth to another daughter,” says Sukhjeet.
The greed for boys got Maina Devi trying again and again. Now saddled with eight children, she has finally gotten herself sterilised.
“I had five daughters and wished for a son but I gave birth to two more daughters in the process until I had to get myself operated,” says Maina Devi.
Unchecked access to sex-determination tests has made getting rid of girls easier. Female foeticide is not just endemic to Haryana but selective-sex abortion is now a full-fledged industry across the country.
“We have more than 80 lakhs girls eliminated in 10-15 years we have about over 30,000-registered clinic and about significant number of them are involved in the crime of sex determination. And our estimate for the medical profession this is a huge business, more than Rs 1,000 they are making every year,” says activist, Sabu George.
Till there is effective legislation on sex-selective abortion and change in society's outlook, Haryana's embarrassing sex ratio of 861 women for every 1,000 men is unlikely to improve.
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