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By Durga Chandran Sting operations are not conducted by the media and law-enforcement agencies alone. The Satara-based CSO, Dalit Mahila Vikas Mandal, has nabbed seven doctors red-handed for violating the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act and revealing the sex of foetuses
“It was sometime early March this year. We were waiting for a tip-off from my wife Nishreen (name changed) who was four months pregnant then. She had an appointment with a famous doctor couple of Kolhapur , Maharashtra , known for conducting at least 30 to 40 Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PNDT) tests or ‘sex determination tests’ every day. Once inside, it was not too difficult for her to strike a deal with the more-than-willing doctors, who demanded Rs 2,000 for an ultra sonography that would reveal the sex of our child. As soon as the doctors had accepted the cash and were on tape mentioning the sex of the foetus, whilst also agreeing to conduct an abortion if required, we barged in with the appropriate district authority and booked the couple for violating the amended PCPNDT Act (2003). “What followed was something straight out of a Bollywood film. Initially the doctors, who were politically well-connected, threatened us; then, a local goon rushed in and tried to beat us up. Nishreen, who had acted as the decoy in this particular case, was called aside and offered Rs 4 lakh to refrain from giving a statement. We quickly confiscated all the record books, sealed the ultrasound machine and immediately filed a chargesheet against the doctors … We managed to nab the couple who, although aware of the PCPNDT Act, believed themselves to be above the law.” Salim Sheikh, now a proud father of a baby girl, narrates this episode with great satisfaction. He is a member of the Dalit Mahila Vikas Mandal, a civil society organisation that fights atrocities against women and dalits in the small town of Satara , in Maharashtra . Over the last two years, since the implementation of the amended Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection), or PCPNDT Act (2003), the mandal has caught at least seven doctors red-handed for revealing the sex of the foetus, in various parts of Maharashtra. In a country where only 303 cases of illegal sex-selection have been filed, and not a single person has been convicted, in the nine years since the original Act came into effect, the exposure of seven cases in the last two years, although a very small number, is significant. “People are moved by the deaths of thousands due to the tsunami or those killed in the genocide in Gujarat because numbers matter to them. No one seems to be really counting the number of girl-children being killed everyday. Doctors have an essential role to play in this systematic slaying of girls... So we decided to bring them to book,” says a visibly upset Varsha Deshpande, the organisation’s founder and legal advisor to the Satara district Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act (PCPNDT) committee. The Act, which came into effect in January 1996, bans the use of ultrasound machines to identify female foetuses and then abort them. It was amended in 2003 to make it more stringent and to curb sex selection not only at the foetal stage but also at the early conception stage. Punishment for violating the Act includes a five-year jail term and a fine of Rs 100,000, besides the cancellation of the doctor’s registration and licence (see Sex selection: Getting down to business ). The Dalit Mahila Vikas Mandal is helped in its mission by several women’s self-help groups (SHGs). The women inform mandal members about possible instances of the illegal practice and also willingly act as decoy patients in various cases. Pregnant women sent out on such ‘sting operations’ are made to give a signed undertaking stating clearly that they will not undergo an abortion no matter what the sex of the foetus turns out to be. “We have to keep changing our tactics every time, as the doctors are becoming more and more alert. Once a doctor is placed under scrutiny, we send a decoy patient along with two volunteers (who later act as witnesses) and see if we can get the doctor to take the bait and reveal the sex of the foetus. In most cases they do; that’s when we arrive on the scene with the appropriate authority and nab them red-handed,” says Deshpande. The appropriate authority appointed by the central government is usually a civil surgeon at the district level; at the municipal level it is the chief medical officer. At the block level the medical officer acts as the appropriate authority. In order to give the law more teeth, the Act makes it mandatory for the appropriate authority to be assisted by an advisory committee comprising three medical officers, three representatives from women’s organisations, one legal representative and one person from the press. In order to ensure speedy proceedings, the PCPNDT Act empowers the state and appropriate district-level authority with the powers of a civil judge. The authority can suspend or cancel the registration of any hospital, clinic or laboratory found violating the Act. The officer in charge also has the power to go through the official hospital records to check whether all sex determination cases, indeed the ultrasound machine itself, have been registered by the hospital concerned. Social activists say the Act, by and large, is a good one as the police have no role to play in it and people can complain about erring doctors directly to the appropriate authority. This reduces the possibility of corruption. However, the law loses some of its bite because few complaints are entertained against medical practitioners, as, often, the appropriate authorities themselves belong to the medical fraternity. “So most of the time we don’t inform the appropriate authority about the sting operation. Once we get the call from our volunteers in the field, we pick up the authorities from wherever they are and take them straight to the scene of the crime. We also don’t let them use their mobile phones, as they could then alert the doctors. We get very little support from politicians and the state advisory committees. It’s a nexus between politicians and doctors,” says Deshpande, explaining some of the difficulties they face in implementing the Act. Also, since the Act is fairly new, the judicial authorities themselves are often unaware of the rules and have no earlier cases to fall back on. “During one of our initial undercover operations we nabbed a doctor practising in Pusegaon village in Satara. He did not have the proper registration documents for the ultrasound machine at his clinic. After conducting a panchanama in the hospital itself, we took him to the judge’s residence at around 11 pm . But the judge was unaware of the Act so we had to wait for two days after giving him a copy of the PCPNDT Act,” says Kailash Jadhav a DMVM member who has been involved in a number of the organisation’s sting operations. Members of the mandal proudly announce that theirs is the only organisation in Maharashtra that has so far brought seven such cases to light -- three in Satara, one in Kolhapur , one in Navi Mumbai, one in Chakan (Pune) and one in Solapur. “We are concentrating our sting operations in the rich western belt of Maharashtra , as these are the regions where the female sex ratio has dropped considerably. Seventy-six per cent of sex-selective abortions in Maharashtra take place in the so-called rich ‘sugar and milk belt’ of the state. A study by Pune’s Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics too has drawn a co-relation between the availability of sonography centres and the decline in female sex ratio in the state between 1991 and 2001,” explains Deshpande. Researchers at the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics found that the average female sex ratio (in the age-group 0-6) in districts that had more than 100 sonography centres was 901; in districts with less than 100 centres it was 937. The study also revealed that as of September 30, 2004 , Maharashtra has 4,345 ultra sound sonography clinics- the largest number in the country. “Despite the enactment of the law and its considerable tightening through an amendment in 2003, it remains an ineffective piece of legislation because little attention has been paid to its implementation,” says Kamayani Bali Mahabal, senior researcher at the Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes (CEHAT), in an interview with a leading national newspaper. The Mumbai-based organisation has been consistently campaigning against sex-selective abortions for over 20 years. Doctors, meanwhile, have found unique ways of bypassing the law and revealing the sex of the foetus to demanding parents. While some scribble innocuous-looking ‘+’ (for a boy) or ‘-’ (for a girl) signs on pieces of paper, others draw a leaf (girl) or a flower (boy), ask for a laddoo (boy) or barfi (girl), or use a specific ink colour to write with. “We try to work around these difficulties and get the doctors to reveal the sex of the foetus in clear terms. The decoy patients, all pregnant women, are used so that the doctors are not suspicious about the motive,” says a member of the mandal. Sting operations have been dismissed by their detractors for their “sensationalism”, and the fact that they rake up controversies. In this case the debate acquires a new dimension, as it is not the media but civil society organisations that are carrying out the sting operations. Audrey Fernandes of Tathapi Trust (a Pune-based organisation working with women and health issues) that was involved in a joint sting operation in Pune with the Dalit Mahila Vikas Mandal defends the method. She says: “The Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act (PCPNDT) specifically spells out the need to catch a doctor red-handed. If you don’t use decoys, how can one get guaranteed information?” The National Commission for Women (NCW) has rejected the Union health minister Ambumani Ramadoss’s plan to use decoys, stating it to be impractical. Varsha Deshpande is not very happy with the NCW’s stand. She says: “These women in committees sit in their offices and give statements. Ask them to come and work in the field and try saving a few girl-children. We want to save the girl-child and we will do it by hook or by crook.” InfoChange News & Features, September 2005
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