Abstract
This chapter explores the historical and theoretical foundations of public policies against sex selection. It starts out by highlighting the diverse population goals, with a balanced sex distribution of the population being one among the many competing governmental concerns. We continue by reviewing the historical evolution of population policies concerning sex selection, stressing the population control movement of the twentieth century, the emergence of prenatal sex selection in the 1980s, and its subsequent political denial. Since the 1990s, international organizations and epistemic communities have brought sex selection into the political agenda urging governments to take action. We then turn to theoretical considerations focusing on three major axes: Why do governments intervene against sex selection (policy intentions)? How can governments intervene (policy instruments)? And what difference does it make (policy impact)? We show that policy intentions on sex selection differ according to national legislation, but that concerned governments all face the challenge of balancing individual rights with societal interests. We present a vast variety of policy instruments to address sex imbalances and classify them according to their targets, namely the motives, methods and magnitudes of sex selection. Finally, we discuss the availability and constraints of diverse evaluation models, and the significant research gaps in assessing the impact of anti-sex selection policies.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
In 2013, 49% of developed nations had policies to raise population growth, while only 2% had policies to lower it. On the contrary, 49% of developing nations had policies to reduce population growth rate and 10% to raise it (UNDESA, 2013, p. 48).
- 3.
Some schools do not believe in policy intervention. For Marxists, population is a response to economy, for Libertarians population will adjust itself, etc.
- 4.
Asians make 60% of the world population in 2010. Asia has 10 of the 18 most populated countries in the world, with China and India hosting 37% of humanity (UNDESA, 2013).
- 5.
E.g. Roman Emperor Augustus (63 BCE-14 CE) tried to boost fertility among aristocrats.
- 6.
More on the family planning movement in South Korea, India and Vietnam can be found in the country chapters.
- 7.
The 1979 UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) obliges UN member states to eliminate “prejudices and … practices … based on the idea of the inferiority or the superiority of either of the sexes” (Article 5.a).
- 8.
- 9.
Since the early 1980s local Indian NGOs lobbied for policy response to regulate diagnostic techniques, first in Maharashtra and later at national level (Forum Against Sex Determination and Sex Pre-Selection, 1992). The Indian case is special because of its strong bottom-up women’s rights movement.
- 10.
There were at least 4 outliers: In 1983, India had banned sex determination in government run hospitals. In 1987, South Korea outlawed prenatal sex determination. In 1988, Maharashtra State issued the Regulation of Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, which banned sex selection and served as a model for Indian national legislation in 1994. In 1989, the Chinese Ministry of Health issued a notice on strictly forbidding prenatal sex diagnostic. The ban was not enforced until 1994.
- 11.
The authors do not further specify what type of political ramifications they refer to. Yet we can presume pressures to protect human rights and conform to the international development agenda.
- 12.
For a description how UNFPA China raised awareness on sex selection after the release of the Chinese Census in 1990 see (UNFPA China, 2010). In fact, early UNFPA intervention was denied in Hvistendahl’s book Unnatural Selection (Hvistendahl, 2011). UNFPA promptly responded to these assertions and the author later corrected her stance in public interviews and on her website.
- 13.
In Tamil Nadu, NGOs efforts led to Baby Cradle Scheme and several other state level programs (Srinivasan & Bedi, 2011). In Maharashtra, activist pushed for state and later national legislation.
- 14.
Since the 1970s regular international population conferences were being held (Bucharest in 1974, Mexico City in 1984, Cairo in 1994, etc.), which have created a global consensus towards a development agenda in population policies.
- 15.
Here are two examples: In Korea, policy makers set up a new Population Policy Deliberation Committee under the Minister of Health and Welfare after having joined the ICPD. They issued legislation to strengthen national efforts to address GBSS (Cho, 1996). In Vietnam, authorities held a post-ICPD National Conference on Population and Development in 1998 informing population policies and leading up to changes enshrined in the 2003 Population Ordinance.
- 16.
We note the tension in the ICPD and Beijing agenda between individual rights and free reproductive choices on the one hand, and the prohibition of reproductive sex-selective choices on the other hand.
- 17.
Legally binding international laws that oblige UN member states to respect, protect and fulfill the human rights of women and children include the ICCPR, ICESCR, CRC, and CEDAW (WHO, 2011).
- 18.
For example in 2003, India amended the PC&PNDT Act due to national pressures and prior inaction of government, and Vietnam banned sex selection in the Population Ordinance.
- 19.
The Swedish ruling motivated the Council of Europe under the auspices of the former Swiss parliamentarian Doris Stump to take up the issue (Stump, 2011). The subsequent Resolution 1829 urges the partner countries of the Council of Europe (including Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan) to combat GBSS. Already in 1997, the Council of Europe had issued the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, which prohibits pre-implementation sex selection for non-medical reasons (Article 14). In 2013, the European Parliament issued a resolution on Gendercide: the missing women? In 2015, the European Union financed the “Global Programme to Prevent Son Preference and Gender-biased Sex Selection: Improving the sex ratio at birth in select countries in Asia and the Caucasus” as part of their Global Public Goods and Challenges (GPGC) Programme (European Union, 2015).
- 20.
- 21.
- 22.
Further UNFPA sponsored expert meetings on sex selection took place in Beijing in 2004, Bangkok and Hyderabad in 2007, Seoul in 2008, Hanoi in 2011, and Delhi in 2013.
- 23.
- 24.
The EU also refers to balanced sex ratios as a “global public good” (European Union, 2015).
- 25.
However, their priority also lies in safeguarding woman’s reproductive rights. IOs have thus struggled in classifying sex selection as a form of ‘violence against women’ and framing it under the human rights framework, because this could potentially imply the personhood of the fetus and endanger access to safe abortion where legal (UNFPA, n.a.). The WHO has therefore stressed that, not the practice itself, but the causes and consequences of GBSS are human rights concerns (WHO, 2011).
- 26.
E.g. the Constitutional Court in South Korea lifted the ban on sex determination in 2005 in order to protect the rights of couples and doctors to access and perform medical services without interference. The courts decision also took into consideration that the overall SRB had normalized in South Korea (see Chap. 5).
- 27.
E.g. in India, it is made explicit that sex selection is not a violation of the individual rights of any one fetus, but a form of discrimination against women as a group (see Chap. 6).
- 28.
This is the case in India according to Paragraph 23 of the PC&PNDT Act.
- 29.
Contemporary policy-making is increasingly shaped by non-state actors, IOs and epistemic communities (Haas, 1992; Joachim, 2007), policy transfer (Dolowitz & Marsh, 2000; James & Lodge, 2003), as well as cross-border governance (Cheema, McNall, & Popovski, 2011). Non-state actors not only inform policies but also carry out multiple types of intervention themselves.
- 30.
The publication of Laws and Son Preference identifies how, in the Indian case, gender biases and discriminatory attitudes towards females in fact underpin the very laws that were designed to prevent discrimination (Singh, 2013).
- 31.
The former Chinese One-Child Policy and the Two-Child Policy in Vietnam are frequently associated with increases in GBSS (Guilmoto, 2012).
- 32.
The Chinese OCP gave allowance for a second child, if the firstborn was a girl. In Vietnam and India, (female) government officials have been under greater pressure to conform to existing family size norms in order to qualify for political office.
- 33.
As laid out in Chap. 2, methods of GBSS include e.g. pre-implementation, preconception, prenatal and postnatal sex selection. We exclude here laws and policies targeting postnatal discrimination.
- 34.
This list was inspired by the Indian PC&PNDT Act and altered.
- 35.
Outcome of sex selection are skewed sex ratios and long-term consequences including marriage squeeze, changes in sexual and marriage patterns, marriage migration, gender-biased violence, prostitution, human trafficking, among others (see Chap. 2).
- 36.
Other contributing factors include population aging, the need for predominantly female care workers, or East Asia women choosing bachelorhood.
- 37.
SRB is here measured as the number of women per 1000 male.
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Rahm, L. (2020). History and Theory of Public Policies Against Sex Selection. In: Gender-Biased Sex Selection in South Korea, India and Vietnam. Demographic Transformation and Socio-Economic Development, vol 11. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20234-7_3
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