Sex Selection in India: Kishwar Desai's "Witness the night"

[Dr Sima Barmania BMdsci MBBS MPH]

When Amartya Sen, Indian economist and Nobel Prize winner, first raised the issue of the missing 100 million women some 20 years ago, I must admit I found it all rather hard to comprehend.  I paid it little regard until last year when I found myself at the UNFPA offices in India, mesmerized by sex-selection posters adorning the walls. Before then it seemed all quite abstract, facts and figures and definitively hard to contextualise.

More recently, a study conducted in India by Prabhat Jha et al.  shows that the practice of selective abortions of girls is still prevalent and furthermore that these abortions are more common in wealthy families.

It is with this in mind that Kishwar Desai’s novel ‘Witness the night’ seems so timely.  Indian author Desai  has crafted a fiction based on fact and tells the story of the 14 year old Durga from Punjab.

 

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/10/06/sex-selection-in-india-ki...

 

[Rituu B. Nanda]

Dear Sima,

I too find this issue very diturbing. You might like to read about my friend Mitu who underwent a similar experience. But she refused to take it and took up cudgels against this practice. Mitu is one strong woman who inspires me http://aidscompetence.ning.com/profiles/blogs/raising-awareness-reg...

You may like to join the Gender group here.

 

Thanks for all your postings. We are honoured to have you with us.

Warmly,

Rituu