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In many ethnic minority communities, the pressure to give birth to sons
rather than daughters can be overwhelming – and sometimes heartbreaking. Cahal
Milmo talks to Britons with experience of the cultural bias against female
babies.
Rupi remembers her second pregnancy with tearful dread. Having given birth
to a girl two years before, she had expected the further love and support of her
husband and his family. Instead, she came under extraordinary pressure to have
an abortion.
The 29-year-old British Indian, who has asked The Independent not to reveal
her real name, found out during a private scan that the child she was expecting
was a girl. It was at this point that congratulations turned to
consternation.
She told The Independent: "It was a completely traumatic time. I had this
child growing inside, a beautiful thing. But my family weren't happy, they
wanted me to have a son. My husband's family were not wealthy and a son is so
cherished.
"I'll never forget. My mother-in-law sat me down one evening and said I
should think about making the pregnancy go away. It was clear what she meant.
When I told my husband what she had said, he said it was something we could
consider. I was shocked. I felt as if my baby had become dirty, shameful."
After seeking the help of a community group near her home in Slough, Rupi,
who comes from a Sikh family, persuaded her family that she should keep her
daughter, now a bouncing three-year-old girl. But she has no plans for further
children.
Other outcomes are not so happy.
In communities of different faiths and ethnicities across Britain, there is
evidence that women are seeking abortions both in the United Kingdom and abroad
on the sole basis that their unborn child is a girl.
The Independent has been told of at least 12 cases in the Midlands where
women have travelled to India to terminate a female foetus. Whether voluntarily
or as a result of pressure from spouses and relatives, mothers-to-be are shaping
- or being compelled to shape - their families to service the notion that a son
is culturally, economically and socially more desirable than a daughter,
according campaigners and clinicians within these communities.
From Chinese to Pakistani couples, Muslim to Hindu to Sikh, the practice is
deeply rooted, springing from reasons such as the desire for a male to continue
the family name, or the wish to avoid the swingeing financial burden of paying a
dowry of up to £25,000 per daughter. More ethereal prejudices include the belief
that if a son - and not a daughter - administers the last rites to a father,
then the patriarch's soul is speeded to heaven.
Community workers told The Independent that there may be dozens of female
foetuses a year in Britain which are being terminated because of "son
preference".
Jasvinder Sanghera, a leading campaigner on forced marriages and honour
violence against women, who founded the charity Karma Nirvana, said: "I think
almost any Asian woman you talk to would say she feels a pressure to have a male
child. There will be many, many Asian women out there who are pregnant and who
are thinking, 'please, please let it be a boy'.
"If you have a daughter, these women will tell us, they feel they have let
their husband or in-laws down. In those circumstances, women are seeking
abortions if they can find out that the child is a girl."
Asked what proportion of families would have a preference for a son, she
added: "Without a shadow of doubt, more than 50 percent."
An investigation by the Daily Telegraph last year exposed two doctors who
were apparently willing to authorise abortions based on gender, though the Crown
Prosecution Service decided to press charges.
Seema, 36, an Afghan based in London who works with women's groups, said:
"It goes on. Often it is a woman who is brought from Afghanistan and the tribal
areas where these beliefs are very strong. It is not frequent but we hear of
doctors who will sign off on the papers."
Dr Sudhir Sethi, a NHS consultant paediatrician who specialises in child
health in Leicester, told The Independent he knew of 12 families in the city
where mothers had travelled to India to terminate a female foetus.He said:
"There are no reliable and absolute figures to say how many [are travelling
abroad for terminations] but we can say that they are more than just a few, to
say the very least.
Illustrating the problem, the doctor cited the words of a woman from
Britain's Punjabi community, the region of northern India where selective
abortion is most prevalent: "They go on holiday with a belly and a baby inside,
and they return with no baby and no belly."
The terminations are also taking place within Britain, according to
community workers.
While many NHS hospitals have a policy of refusing to divulge the gender of
a foetus until after the 24-week abortion limit, private scans are
available.
And yet the cultural underpinning to the desire for a son runs deeply
across some of Britain's ethnic minorities and indeed extends among white
Britons, where so-called "family balancing" is increasingly cited as a reason
for the use of emerging technologies such as sperm washing to select the gender
of a child.
As one worker for a helpline for Chinese women put it: "Why shouldn't a
woman be allowed to decide whether the child she carries is a girl or a boy?
There is a right for the woman to control her body."
The desire to avoid the payment of dowry, the practice of a bride's family
providing either physical goods or cash for the "transfer" of a daughter, is
cited as a particular reason why a daughter is considered a liability.
Mrs Sanghera said: "These attitudes are completely alive and kicking in our
communities. And yet nobody is speaking out about them. We should be in no doubt
at all, this preference for sons and pressuring a woman to achieve that end is
part of the same set of problems as honour abuse and forced marriage. "
The charity said it was also aware of cases where women who have given
birth to multiple daughters are simply divorced and a new wife sought who can
provide a son.
Judy Barber, a senior call handler for the charity, said: "Many callers
report that in their families and communities the birth of a boy is much more
welcome than that of a girl. Two callers said that when a girl is born it is
'like a funeral'."
There is evidence that similar attitudes have been continued among second
and third generation offspring of migrants. A BBC survey found that two thirds
of young British Asians believe that families should live according to the
concept of "honour", with nearly one in five saying physical punishment of a
woman for certain behaviour was justifiable.
Mrs Sanghera said: "The links back to South Asia are very strong and we see
very often that these attitudes are transferred from one generation to the next.
This is not a prejudice that can be quickly dismantled."
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发表于 2016-7-10 18:36:27