NEW DELHI, April 11 (Xinhua) -- As many as 300 abortion centers in India's northern state of Haryana had been stripped of their licenses over the past two days, as a crackdown was launched to check cases of female foeticide across the state.
There were around 1,500 abortion centers in the state. Over the past decades, Haryana had been among the states witnessing a low sex-ratio, as traditionally families here prefer to have a boy child over girl. They opt for female foeticide after conducting a sex-determination test.
As per the provisional data for the year 2024 from Haryana's health department, the sex ratio (females per 1,000 males) stood at 910, against the national sex ratio of 929.
To check the skewed sex ratio, the state government had recently set up a task force to curb illegal abortions. Task force's head Virender Yadav was quoted as saying that notices had been issued to 23 abortion centers across the state, and formal police complaints had been lodged against 17 online sellers of Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) kits.
He added that a total of 23 raids had been conducted on such centers to tighten the enforcement of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act.
Besides, Haryana's health authorities reportedly said that the state government had identified over 62,000 pregnant women who were mothers to one or more girl children, and appealed to them not to undergo a gender test which was a punishable offence under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994 (PCPNDT Act). ■
