According to the police and the woman’s relatives, a man in northern India was arrested after ripping his pregnant wife’s stomach open with a sickle, supposedly trying to determine the unborn baby’s gender.
What We Know:
- In Budaun, Uttar Pradesh, officers stated that the attack, which occurred on Saturday, caused the baby’s death and left the mother, Anita Davi, in critical condition. She remains hospitalized in intensive care in the capital New Delhi.
- Golu Singh, the woman’s brother, stated her husband, Pannalal, attacked her with a sickle and ripped her stomach open to check the gender of the unborn baby. A sickle is a short-handled farming tool with a semicircular blade, used for cutting grain, lopping, or trimming.
- Police stated the baby was stillborn late on Sunday, and Pannalal had been taken into custody.
- The couple already has five daughters. The majority of the time, daughters are often seen as a burden in India, with families having to pay dowries (property or money brought by a bride to her husband on their marriage) when they marry. At the same time, sons are rewarded or labeled as breadwinners who receive property and continue the family name.
- According to the 2017-18 Economic Survey, often couples will keep trying until a boy is born, leading to the birth of tens of millions of “undesirable” girls.
- Indian law prohibits doctors and health workers from taking part in an unborn child’s sex with the parents or performing tests to determine their gender. Only registered medical practitioners are authorized to execute abortions.
- Even if a daughter is born instead of aborted, they often face higher mortality rates due to inadequate care; a 2018 study found that about 239,000 girls under five die in India every year due to gender-based neglect.
Some of the established preferences are the norms governing inheritance, the dowry requirement, the tradition of women joining their husbands’ households, and rituals that male children need to perform.
