News Kashmir Exclusive
Gender imbalance is a disparity between male and females in a population. As stated above, males usually exceed females at birth but subsequently experience different mortality rates due to many possible causes such as differential natural death rates, war casualties, and deliberate gender control. But in many places the less ratio of females is becoming serious issue.
In our state Jammu and Kashmir too it is a serious issue. In previous census in 2011,we came to know about the ugly realities with reference to it. As against the national average of 919 females in 0 to 6 years age group, J&K has 862.
Pertinently, as a matter of great misfortune we welcome our girl child with mourning song usually. The scenes usually witnessed in hospitals when a girl child is born are usually- Women are in a sad mood , men also often bowing down their heads in order to hide their tears or sometimes even giving frustrated looks and reactions , grandmother beating her chest, grandfather cursing his destiny and all this leads to gender disparity.
As per 2011 census In J&K, all the 22 districts have witnessed decrease in the number of female children. Pulwama tops the list with the loss of 217 female children per thousand. Budgam follows with the noteworthy fall of 172. While as Pulwama (829) and Budgam (832) have fared as the worst, these two districts were ironically on the top of the best performing districts with 1046 and 1004 respectively in 2001. Statistics were little reassuring in Jammu province where Poonch (-66), Kishtwar (-53), Ramban (-43) and Rajouri (-40) have topped the list in the loss. Reasi (-33), Udhampur (-26) and Doda (-26) have followed. Jammu (-24), Samba (-19) and Kathua have witnessed the least amount of loss.
Few time back prominent politician and former minister of the state also spoke on the issue. In a function Mrs Sethi also spoke about the recently launched state sponsored social security schemes meant for women i.e Ladli Beti and Aasra. She said many districts in Jammu and Kashmir exhibited declining sex ratio adding that to reverse the dangerous trend, Government started the Ladli Beti Scheme in select districts of Kathua, Jammu, Samba, Budgam, Pulwama and Anantnag to create positive disposition about the girl child and to address the concerns of girl’s right from birth to adulthood by providing financial security to the girls.
While talking to News Kashmir, Muhammad Tauseef Mir, President Youth Council, an organization working on youth and women issues stated – “ While we celebrated the recent women day just few days back , we all know that we are confronting serious issue like Gender Imbalance in our state especially the Valley of Kashmnir .Seven out of ten districts in Kashmir have lost more than a hundred females every thousand. Even as Baramulla has lost 98 female children per thousand, followed by Bandipore (-75) and Srinagar (-63), the Valley’s rural districts of Pulwama (-217), Budgam (-172), Ganderbal (-151), Kupwara (-142), Anantnag (-136), Shopian (-133) and Kulgam (-118) have topped the list of dubious distinction. We have the disastrous consequences from entire world to act now or never against this gender imbalance. More than 24 million Chinese men could find themselves without spouses in 2020 as gender imbalance grows.”
Realities suggest that Gender Imbalance is a serious issue in Kashmir.
