This article is written by Kavana Rao from Symbiosis Law School, Noida. This article gives us an insight into how the UP Population Bill contradicts the prevention of female foeticide.

Introduction

Uttar Pradesh is the most heavily populated state in India with over 200 million people. With such continuing rampant increase in population, the population of entire India could surpass that of China’s and create a run for basic resources, employment and could also affect the economic stability and quality of life. To tackle the population problem in the state, in July, it released a new draft population policy. Research states that the new policy to control the population may lead to other undesired consequences like an increase in female foeticide, unsafe abortions leading to deterioration in women’s health, and sometimes even death in the process. 

UP’s Population Control Bill

The UP’s Population Control Bill provides public servants who are under the control of the state government with many perks and incentives if they adopt the norms laid down by the government.

Chapter II lays down the incentives provided by the state government on adopting the norms and the disincentives prescribed when the couples are in contravention of the norms laid down under the Act.

Section 4 states that if the public servants under the control of the state government adopt the two-child norm by undergoing voluntary sterilization operation upon himself or the spouse shall be given the following incentives:

1. Two additional increments during the entire service. Subsidies and soft loans towards the purchase of a plot or house at a nominal rate of interest.
2. Rebates on the charges for utilities such as water, electricity, house tax, etc.
3. Maternity or paternity leave for 12 months with full salary and allowances.
4. 3 % increase in the employer’s contribution fund under the national pension scheme.
5. Free health care facilities and insurance coverage to spouses and other such benefits and incentives.

Under Section 5 of the UP Population Bill, the state government provides incentives to those public servants who have only one child and undergo voluntary sterilization upon himself or herself or their spouse. In addition to the benefits provided in Section 4, the public servants are provided with free health care and insurance coverage for the single child till it attains the age of twenty. Further, preference shall be given to the single child in admission to all educational institutions, the single child will be provided with free education up to graduation level, and in case of a girl child, they are awarded scholarships for higher studies.  

Under Section 6, the bill not only provides some incentives for the public servants but also to the general public. If the general public either adopts the two-child policy or has only one child, by getting a sterilization operation upon themselves or on their spouse. Most of the incentives are similar to the ones given to public servants.

Section 7 provides a special benefit to couples living under the Below Poverty Line if the couple has only one child and undergoes voluntary sterilization operation of themselves or their spouses. The family will be eligible for a one-time lump sum amount of rupees eighty thousand if the single child is a boy and one lakh rupees if it is a girl child.

Section 8 provides the disincentives to the couples in contravention of the two-child norm. If a couple procreates more than two children then they shall not be eligible for any of the incentives provided from Section 4 to Section 7. Further, there will be disincentives like:

1. Being debarred from the benefits of Government Sponsored Welfare Schemes;
2. Limit of ration cards up to four units; and 
3. Other disincentives that may be prescribed.

The disincentives do not stop there, there are other disincentives like a bar on contesting elections, a bar on applying for jobs, a bar on promotion in government services, and a bar on receiving any kind of government subsidies. This does not apply to employees who already have more than two children but they have to take an undertaking that they shall not act in contravention to the two-child norms.

How the UP’s Population Bill contradicts the prevention of female foeticide problem

Research studies and previous data indicate that the new population control policy may have an undesirable effect with the increase in the female foeticide rates in the State.  India has one of the highest rates of female foeticide in the world with the sex ratio falling from 927 to 919 for every 1000 males in a decade. The proposed policy could widen the gap further in states like Uttar Pradesh where the sex ratio is 902 females for every 1000 males. A study also predicts that the highest deficits in female births from 2017 to 2030 can occur in Uttar Pradesh with nearly two million missing female births, and the introduction of the policy will aggravate these numbers.

According to Alaku Basu, a sociologist, demographer, and professor of development sociology at Cornell University, the new population control policy fails to understand the impact of this Bill. It also fails to understand the link between the population and development.

Economists Abhishek Chakravarty and S. Anukriti, in their paper, entitled ‘Democracy and Demography: Societal Effects of Fertility Limits on Local Leaders’ have observed that population control measures could worsen the sex ratio at birth, due to the preference of Indian society for male children. They observe that the two-child laws may affect the sex ratio of second births for couples who have one child who is a girl at the announcement. For example, if parents desire at least one son, couples who have one daughter and no sons when the law is announced may be more likely to practice sex selection at second parity due to the two-child limit. 

Taking examples of states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra Gujarat, and Assam which have already implemented the two-child policy in some form depicts that the states observed an unsafe rise in sex-selective abortions, men alienating their wives or divorcing them, and also giving up children for adoption with the selfish motive of contesting the elections. Whereas states like Kerala, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu have observed a remarkable drop in the fertility rates without adversely affecting the sex ratio. Instead of implementing such adverse policies, these states concentrated on education and awareness.

How China’s single-child policy led to a drop in the sex ratio

“There is no behavior more unfilial than to have no male descendants”, this Confucian saying is similar to the mindset of the Indian society even till the present day. China had introduced the one-child policy in 1981 seeking to restrain the rising population growth. In their zeal to reduce the number of births, the officials resorted to abortions on a large scale. With the one-child policy and the obvious preference for a male child, families resorted to female infanticide. Many Chinese families believed that if they were allowed to have only one child, they would rather have a male child. This frantic push for a male child led to drowning, suffocation, poisoning, and the dissertation of the girl child. 

In a paper published by the University of Denver, it was also observed that sex-selective abortion and various methods of female infanticide had resulted in an excess of males in China’s population when the one-child policy was introduced. It also observed that it was estimated that, over the next twenty years, there would be twelve to fifteen percent more males than females in the Chinese population.

The census in 1981 recorded 1981 births of 10,765,292 boys and 9,924,412 girls, representing an unusually high sex ratio of 108.5 male to 100 female. Comparing the actual number of female births to the world norm indicates a loss of 232,000 baby girls in 1981 alone.

All these were impacts of the one-child policy in China due to the cultural stigma of having a male child. This similar stigma is also present in India, and through this analogy, with the one-child policy implemented by China in the 1980s, we can interpret that there would be similar consequences of the UP Population Control Bill in India as well.

Solutions for population control

• Educate and make the masses aware of the importance of population control and family planning and different methods of family planning through NGOs, organizations, and healthcare workers.
• Distribute contraceptive pills, condoms, etc through health care centers and NGOs.
• Ensure mandatory registration of pregnancies and births, deaths, and deliveries across the state.
• Distribution of supplements like iron tablets, vitamins to the women free of cost at government hospitals and health care centers.
• Form village level groups to encourage and disseminate advantages of small family norms, the value of girl child and also make efforts to educate the people of gender equality.
• Educate men about the benefits of vasectomy (sterilization surgery in men) in population control and is a reversible surgery and less complicated unlike tubectomy (sterilization surgery in women) which are irreversible surgeries and more complicated.
• Conduct vaccination and immunization drives and camps to protect the children from various health risks.

Conclusion

By taking reliance from various research papers, numbers, and real-life incidents, like that of China and few states in India, it can be concluded that the Uttar Pradesh Population Control Bill will have an adverse effect on the sex ratio of the state and subsequently of the country. It will lead to undesirable effects like female infanticide, deterioration in women’s health with the abortions for a male child, and also because of multiple deliveries. The state should try to adopt more reformative methods rather than the incentive method to control the population growth in the country. By creating awareness and imparting knowledge about the importance of population control and family planning, there will be a holistic development in the attitude of people and they will not practice family planning methods merely for the incentives and the rewards.

References

• https://www.epw.in/journal/2005/24/special-articles/law-two-child-norm-panchayats.html 
• https://thewire.in/rights/rising-female-foeticide-targeted-harassment-ups-population-control-bill-may-be-dangerous 
• https://www.epw.in/journal/2005/24/special-articles/law-two-child-norm-panchayats.html 
• https://www.aeaweb.org/conference/2016/retrieve.php?pdfid=21843&tk=8EkZ9rbH 
• https://www.du.edu/korbel/hrhw/researchdigest/china/InfanticideChina.pdf 
• https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1985/01/08/chinas-birth-control-policy-drives-some-to-kill-baby-girls/77bf59d0-b0c0-4261-a1e5-51ea6a3b8939/ 
• https://thediplomat.com/2021/07/the-gendered-impact-of-uttar-pradeshs-population-control-bill/ 

LawSikho has created a telegram group for exchanging legal knowledge, referrals, and various opportunities. You can click on this link and join: