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NEWS > EVERYONE ELSE > INDIA DETERMINES THAT GIRLS JUST AREN’T WORTH THE PRICE OF HEART SURGERY
INDIA DETERMINES THAT GIRLS JUST AREN’T WORTH THE PRICE OF HEART SURGERY
September 25 2011
New Delhi, India – Many cultures across the world show a preference for one gender or another, and for the most part that preference is for males. After all, whether we like to admit it or not, much of the world is still dominated by men. They are the primary bread winners and the stronger of the two genders, meaning that they are a better long-term investment, particularly for poorer families.
Now in India, where a preference towards males has long been a part of the cultural make-up of the country, the investment in males has become even more prevalent with a new study showing that the majority families deciding against life-saving surgery for girls just in case they need the money for their male children.
“We found that significant gender bias exists in the acceptance of heart surgery among children. Of the 405 patients studied, 44 per cent of girls had undergone surgery at 1 year compared with 70 per cent of boys,” said Dr. S. Ramakrishnan who led the study. It’s not clear yet where the mortality rates of those children stands.
Abortion of female foetuses is also common in the country, which saves even more on hospital bills.
“In the West it’s difficult to understand something like this but the reality of life there
is nothing like it is here. Many people in India live in crushing poverty and they have difficulty in supporting healthy children, never mind sickly ones. Males will make more money in the future and provide better financial stability for the family than females and so a choice has to be made,” said Scrape TV International analyst Gustav Hander. “It has to be a hard choice for them, but they need to make a choice that benefits the family as a whole. What we don’t see in this data, though, is whether or not some girls are not receiving the surgery because the family simply wants to save it for the males, perhaps to purchase them a new car or a night in the big city.”
Dowries are also common in India, further adding to the financial burden related to female children.
Many families also cite scarring as a reason for refusing the surgery. Scars of course are cool in boys but could impact the market value for girls once they reach marrying age.
“The last thing many of these families want it to be burdened by an adult girl with little or no marriage prospects. In those cases it is often better that the child dies rather than becoming a weight for the family. Frankly, many of those girls would rather have that as well especially as they get older. That said, female children, healthy ones, are usually much easier to sell than males,” continued Hander. “Unfortunately that practice has fallen away in recent years with the market just kind of drying up. There are cheap children from China and the Philippines and other countries competing with India and so a sale isn’t always guaranteed. That just makes female children more of a risk and, I mean you can always have more so if one dies you just start again. It’s not like the country is going to run out people anytime soon.”
No boys were complaining about the study.
Emil Uliya, International Correspondent
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