The Girl Vanishes

Updated on: 7 February 2024 6:09 pm

The Girl Vanishes

States with worst child sex ratio in 2003*

State	2003	2001

Punjab	776	793
Himachal Pradesh	803	897
Haryana	807	820
Uttar Pradesh	853	916
Rajasthan	855	909
Bihar	861	938
Gujarat	862	878

States with most favourable child sex ratio in 2003

Tamil Nadu	953	939
Karnataka	943	949
West Bengal	937	963
overall india	883	927

Source: Office of Registrar General, figures released in October 2003. *Sex ratio: No. of girls for 1,000 boys.

By a conservative estimate, female foeticide accounts for at least half-a-million missing female births in India every year, according to research findings published last month in the British medical journal, Lancet. The Lancet study estimates that more than 10 million female foetuses may have been aborted in India in the last two decades.