Indian-origin women aborting female foetuses in Australia

Sydney, Aug 19
More Indian-origin women in Australia are aborting female foetuses because of family and cultural pressures to give birth to boys, media reported on Wednesday.

"Australia registered 1,395 missing female births during 2003-2013 among Indian and Chinese communities in Australia," an SBS Radio report quoted Christophe Guilmoto, who authored a UN report on gender selection in the country, as saying.

The report said the practice of stopping female foetuses from being born is happening in Australia because of a system loophole.

"They (pregnant women) have gone for gender testing, early gestation, but they disappear from the system," Guilmoto said.

"They say I will go for an ultrasound, then they will go for an abortion... If they find it is a female baby, they will go to the abortion clinic from the ultrasound," he said.

Last year, an Australian woman of Indian descent was forced out of her home after she refused to give into pressure of finding out her baby's gender during early-gestation ultrasounds.

"They kept forcing me so bad. 'Find out the sex, find out the sex!' If it did not matter to them they would not have forced me that much," the woman, who wished not to be identified was quoted as saying in the report.

When the woman gave birth to a girl she was abused before being kicked out of the house.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, between 2003 and 2013 the national standard of births in Australia was 105.7 boys born for every 100 girls.

But for Indian-born, there was a higher ratio of boys with a median of 108.2 boys born for every 100 girls.