10 million daughters lost

At least 10 million female foetuses have been aborted in India over the past two decades by middle-class families determined to ensure they have male heirs.

The figure is revealed by a survey of more than a million homes published today which found that sex determination in pregnancy and selective abortion accounted for 500,000 missing girls each year.

"Daughters are regarded as a liability. Because she will eventually belong to the family of her future husband, expenditure on her will benefit others. In some communities where the custom of dowry prevails, the cost of her dowry could be phenomenal."

The research team found that when the first birth was a girl, at the second birth there were 759 girls born to every 1,000 boys. At the third birth, the sex ratio declined further to 719 girls to every 1,000 boys when the first two births were girls. By contrast, when the first or second child was a boy, the number of girls born at second or subsequent births exceeded the number of boys.

The practice of female foeticide has taken the place of infanticide and is extensive in China as well as India, aided by the development of ultrasound. Dr Sheth says: "Female infanticide of the past is refined and honed to a fine skill in this modern guise. It is ushered in earlier, more in urban areas and by the more educated ... A careful demographic analysis of actual and expected sex ratios shows that about 100 million girls are missing from the world - they are dead."