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Anger flares over pre-birth gender choice service
By Muddassir Rizvi
January 23, 2001
Rawalpindi - Public health and human rights activists are up in arms over a
gender choice service being offered by a leading gynecologist. Using the
service, couples can choose the sex of their child, claim the promoters.
The service is not cheap. The doctors charge 40,000 rupees (about US$700) from
each client, but with the deep-rooted social preference for sons, the service
is increasingly popular.
Opponents are accusing the medical firm, Baby Choice, of engaging in an
unethical business. "These services are unethical as they thrive on social
disparities existing in society. In this case, the company is exploiting the
established gender preference for male offspring," says Hadia Nusrat, who works
with an Islamabad-based public health publication. "Every sixth death of a girl
[in Pakistan] is due to neglect and ill treatment," she adds, quoting from a
study.
Like elsewhere in South Asia, girls in mainly rural Pakistan face
discrimination from the moment they are born, being starved of their share of
nutrition, health care and education. However, Baby Choice, a subsidiary of a
France-based medical firm, rejects the charge. The firm argues that it is not
responsible for the gender bias in the country and is simply helping parents
who wish to have a boy or girl.
"Rights activists should direct their energies toward correcting the gender
preference and social attitudes, rather than condemning the existence of our
business," said Khawaja Farooq, who was the Baby Choice chief executive until
December 2000. Other company representatives have taken the same position in
seminars organized by the company in the big cities of Pakistan.
"The company began its operations in Rawalpindi - the twin city of the national
capital Islamabad - last year. It now has branches in the southern port city of
Karachi and the eastern metropolis of Lahore.
Baby Choice says it uses a special computer program developed in France which
makes it possible to determine the exact days when a woman can conceive a child
of the desired sex. No medical tests are required.
However, rights groups say such medically-assisted sex selection methods have
been banned by several nations, such as Canada, Britain, Australia and Hong
Kong. The use of pre-birth gender determination is allowed only for medical
reasons - for example, sex linked diseases, they point out.
Baby Choice is not alone. Another company offering pre-birth gender selection
services started operations in Islamabad in November 2000. However, this relies
on a different method based on the separation of the male and female
chromosones, using a technique developed in the United States.
Officials at the Pakistan office of the UN Children's Fund (Unicef) too express
disapproval of such methods. "Pre-birth gender selection is a clear case of
discrimination against girls. We also believe that the resultant gender
imbalance would create severe social problems including increase of violence
against women," a Unicef official said in a letter to the Islamabad-based
consumer group, the Network for Consumer Protection.
The Network has urged the government to ban doctors from marketing the Baby
Choice pre-gender selection technique, but the Ministry of Health says it can
do nothing because of legal reasons. ''Baby Choice is registered as a private
limited company under the country's Company's Act 1984 ... we can only question
health-related services," says a health ministry official.
According to the Network, the company pays about 4,000 rupees to a doctor who
is able to sell the service to a couple. Doctors promoting the service say it
helps couples to plan their families.
"This unethical and scientifically unproven activity has been covertly
practiced by quacks in Pakistan for centuries. But it has now been converted
into an overt commercial activity. Through involvement of doctors, the company
is trying to legitimize a dubious business," says a Network spokesperson.
Some doctors in Pakistan, however, have questioned the company's claim. "Their
(Baby Choice's) claims do not hold water ... they have not been able to furnish
research data that led to this service," says Khalida Akhtar, a renowned
gynecologist and Professor of Obstetrics at an Islamabad medical college.
The pre-birth gender selection method used by Baby Choice is called Selnas,
developed by Prokiad Laboratories in France. The company says the method has
been tried on cattle and also on humans and met with 98 percent success.
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