Female immigrants from India are having more sons than daughters, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology Canada.
"It's counterintuitive," said Marcelo Urquia, a research scientist at the University of Manitoba's Centre for Health Policy and lead author of the study. "We know that the longer immigrants are in Canada, the more likely they are to align to the host country."
But Indian women in Ontario who already have two daughters are giving birth to 192 baby boys for every 100 girls. The ratio is so distorted, only sex-selective abortion can explain it. Read the rest of the article from the Globe and Mail here.
In India, the ratio of male to female newborns varies considerably, with several northern states consistently showing numbers that favour boys, the study says. The practice of sex selection is not widespread across India but it is prevalent, said Kripa Sekhar, executive director of the South Asian Women’s Centre in Toronto. “Many members of the community welcome a girl child,” she said. “It’s a small minority of the community in Canada that still practises this.” (If the statistics given above are indication, that minority is not as small as Ms Sekhar imagines.)
A woman has a fundamental right in Canada to decide whether to have an abortion, and should not come under pressure from a spouse or other family members to deliver a male child, Ms Sekhar, said.
“This is an issue of choice that is taken away from a woman,” she said. “In many ways it is very abusive.”