WASHINGTON – Expressing concern over increasing female foeticide in India, American lawmakers and experts have asked the US Government to help play a role in curbing such horrific practices and abuses against the girl child and women.
At a Congressional hearing on “India’s Missing Girls”, lawmakers and experts asked India to strictly enforce its rules, with several of them holding the “complex web of socio-economic and cultural factors” responsible for this and called for increasing awareness in this regard.
“There’s a complex web of socio-economic and cultural factors that result in discrimination against girls. You know, the chairman identified a few of those. These then manifest in sex-selective practices, so we have to address those underlying causes,” Indian-American Congressman Ami Bera said during the Congressional hearing.
“The only way to achieve long-lasting and real change is really to engage in community-level campaigns to change attitudes and change cultural norms that perpetuate this bias against women and girls,” he said.
“The best role for the US to play is to remain a strong supporter and leader within the global community in order to best promote women’s rights and the freedom of every woman to make personal decisions about her health, her body and her to really empower women,” said Bera who has recently returned from a trip to India.
Congressman, Christopher Smith, who chaired the hearing of the Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organisations Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the roots of the present problem lies not only with cultural factors, but also misbegotten policy decisions, including population-control policies that were hatched in the US, which have had a disproportionately negative impact on India’s women.
