Haq's Musings

Riaz Haq writes this data-driven blog to provide information, express his opinions and make comments on many topics. Subjects include personal activities, education, South Asia, South Asian community, regional and international affairs and US politics to financial markets. For investors interested in South Asia, Riaz has another blog called South Asia Investor at http://www.southasiainvestor.com and a YouTube video channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkrIDyFbC9N9evXYb9cA_gQ

Showing posts with label Indian Women. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Poverty Drives "Google Baby" Boom in India

Cost arbitrage that began with call center outsourcing from the West to India has now found its way into the low-rent wombs of poor Indian women! This new growing business has created a global supply chain with low-cost human babies as the final product brought to the West. This business can cut the cost from over $100,000 in the U.S. to less than $6000 per baby in India. It is explained in an Israeli documentary "Google Baby" scheduled to be aired on HBO in the United States tomorrow. The movie follows an Israeli gay man who decided to have low-cost test-tube babies by outsourcing the job to India.

Wealthy Americans and Europeans, gay or straight, can now shop online for an egg from an egg donor in the West, use their sperm or from sperm another western donor, and implant the embryo into a surrogate mother in India. These people don't want their European genes to be mixed with those of the poor women in India, but the Indian women are acceptable as cheap surrogate mothers.

On NPR Talk of the Nation show aired today, the show host Neal Conan and Google Baby producer Zippi Brand Frank introduced the basic idea of surrogacy in India in the following exchange:

"CONAN: And essentially your film follows a young man from Israel who has been -he and his partner have adopted a baby, has gotten a surrogate baby themselves from the United States. And he says in the end it ended up costing him $140,000. And he thinks, wait a minute, everything else is being outsourced to India. Why not this?

Ms. FRANK: Exactly. That's what - that's exactly his start-up(ph). I mean he did it - he did his first baby through 100 - he paid 140,000 U.S. dollars and he decided he's going to find the cheapest way to do the other babies. And now his business is really growing rapidly, I would say. And it costs, if you go to India and you still want to have a Western egg donor but you can, you know, you can compromise for an Indian surrogate mother, so you pay only 40,000 U.S. dollars, and that's the maximum you can get for a baby."

The NPR radio show featured a couple of soundbites from an Indian obstetrician Dr. Nayna Patel in Anand, Gujarat, who is actively promoting her India-based surrogacy business in the West.

"Dr. NAYNA H. PATEL (Akanksha Infertility Clinic): Hello? Yes. I'm so sorry, Doctor, but you know it's not an easy procedure. It's a very complicated procedure, surrogacy, and they should understand all the implications before they go into it. Yeah? So that - yes. The husband and wife themselves should come, understand the whole procedure, and then decide whether they would want to go for it or not, okay? When they come personally we can discuss it, okay? Okay. Welcome. Bye-bye. No, no, no, most welcome. Bye-bye."

"Dr. PATEL: I am Dr. Nayna Patel, and I'm practicing in vitro fertilization (unintelligible) in Gujarat, India. And (unintelligible) started practicing surrogacy. And these are a few of my surrogates who work with me. All of my surrogates are very humble, simple, nice females. And they are very committed, they are very dedicated, they're very religious. And they want to do their job in a very dedicated manner. These surrogates are (unintelligible) and they always deliver under my care and supervision. And this, as a clinic, we try to supervise as a whole procedure."

Dr. Nayna Patel's IVF and cheap surrogacy business has dramatically picked up since her appearance on Oprah Winfrey Show back in 2006.

It is common in the United States for IVF children to know and maintain contact with their surrogate birth mothers. However, the poor Indian mothers do not want to acknowledge their surrogate status in public, nor do they want any connection with the babies they carry to term because of social taboos. Critics argue that the surrogacy practice in India is not only exploitation of poor women, but it is also a violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which states that all children have a right to know their parents.

Here is a video on ethical and moral implications of legalized commercial surrogacy in India:

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Honor Killings in India

Ms. Nirupama Pathak, a bright young business journalist based in Delhi, was brutally murdered recently by her family for carrying on an inter-caste relationship with a male colleague.

Honor killings in India claim over 1000 lives every year, according to an Indian website reporting such statistics. Last year, there were 100 honor killings recorded in the Indian state of Haryana alone, according to Washington Post.

In 2008, a judge in Haryana and Punjab, Kanwaljit Singh Ahluwalia, said the number of "couples hiding themselves in the corridors of court" had risen in recent years. In response, the government set up hotlines and opened shelters for the runaway couples.

Honor killings among Pakistanis and Muslims have received a lot of air time and print space in recent years. The unfortunate fact is that such honor killings still happen, and are not limited to specific countries or religions. This heinous practice cuts across faiths, social strata and incomes. A United Nations report says there are 5,000 honor killings every year across the globe. The crime is rampant in India as well as West and Southeast Asia. Even in the United Kingdom, the police contend there is at least one such murder every month among Asian communities.

According to a story in National Geographic, reports submitted to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights show that honor killings have occurred in Bangladesh, Great Britain, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Pakistan, Morocco, Sweden, Turkey, and Uganda. In countries not submitting reports to the UN, the practice was condoned under the rule of the fundamentalist Taliban government in Afghanistan, and has been reported in Iraq and Iran.

But while honor killings have elicited considerable attention and outrage, human rights activists argue that they should be regarded as part of a much larger problem of violence against women.

In India, for example, more than 5,000 brides die annually because their dowries are considered insufficient, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

Here's a video about an honor killing near Delhi:

Monday, May 24, 2010

Superfreakonomics on Status of Indian Women

Freakonomics is a series of books by authors Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner who find data points, patterns, correlations and trends that are often missed by mainstream economists and researchers. For example, the authors see how legalization of abortion may have caused significant crime rates decline in the United States in recent decades. They argue with various statistics to reject other possible explanations like gun control, strong economy, three-strikes laws etc. Authors say that the termination of unwanted pregnancies has led to fewer criminals on the streets of America.

In their latest book of the Freakonomics series, Superfreakonomics, the authors cite the findings of two American economists Robert Jensen and Emily Oster that cable TV in 2700 households empowered Indian women to be more autonomous. Cable TV households had lower birthrates, less domestic abuse and kept more girls in school. Here are some highlights from the book about India:

1. If women could choose their birthplace, India might not be a wise choice of a place for any of them to be born.

2. In spite of recent economic success and euphoria about India, the people of India remain excruciatingly poor.

3. Literacy is low, and corruption is high in India.

4. Only half the Indian households have electricity, and fewer have running water.

5. Only one in 4 Indian homes has a toilet.

6. 40% of families with girls want to have more children, but families with boys do not want a baby girl.

7. It's especially unlucky to be born female, baby boy is like a 401 K retirement plan, baby girl requires a dowry fund.

8. Smile Train in Chennai did cleft repair surgery at no cost for poor children. A man was asked how many children he had. He said he had 1, a boy. It turned out that he also had 5 daughters which he did not mention.

9. Indian midwives in Tamil Nadu are paid $2.50 to kill girls with cleft deformity.

10. Girls are highly undervalued, there are 35 million fewer females than males, presumed dead, killed by midwife or parent or starved to death. Unltrasound are used mainly to find and destroy female fetuses. Ultrasound and abortion are available even in the smallest villages with no electricity or clean water.

11. If lucky enough not to be aborted, girls face inequality and cruelty at every turn because of low social status of Indian women.

12. 51% of Indian men say wife beating is justified, 54% women agree, especially when dinner is burned or they leave home without husband's permission.

13. High number of unwanted pregnancies, STDs, HIV infections happen to Indian women when 15% of the condoms fail. Indian Council of Medical Research found that 60% of Indian men's genitalia are too small to fit the condoms manufactured to international standard sizes.

14. Indian laws to protect women are widely ignored. The government has tried monetary rewards to keep baby girls and supported microfinance for women. NGO programs, smaller condoms, and other projects have had limited success.

15. People had little interest in State run TV channel due to poor reception or boring programs. But cable television has helped women, as 150 million people between 2001-2006 got cable TV which gave them exposure to wider world.

16. American economists found that the effect of TV in 2700 households empowered women to be more autonomous. Cable TV households had lower birthrates, less domestic abuse and kept daughters in schools.

Freakonomics series authors Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner use the above facts to prove what they call the "Law of Unintended Consequences".

They argue that access to cable TV, not originally intended to help liberate women, has done more to improve the lives of Indian women than the many laws and government programs designed to help them.

Cable television is present in over 16 million Pakistani households accounting for 68% of the population in 2009. I am not aware of any studies done on the impact of cable TV on rural women in Pakistan, but my guess is that trends similar to India's are empowering women in Pakistan's rural households with growing cable TV access.

Related Links:

Media Boom in Pakistan

Gender Inequality Worst in South Asia

Grinding Poverty in Resurgent India

Women's Status in Pakistan

WEF Global Gender Gap Rankings 2009

India, Pakistan Contrasted 2010

Female Literacy Through Mobile Phones

Pakistan's Woman Speaker: Another Token or Real Change

Female Literacy Lags Far Behind in India and Pakistan

Female Genocide Unfolding in India

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Women Reps to Close India's Gender Gap?

Guest Post By Rakesh Mani

As Jawed Naqvi has pointed out in Dawn, there is no proven linear relationship between the representation of women in parliament and their emancipation. Pakistan’s assembly has 22% female representation, he argues, more than double the figure in India. Yet Pakistan ranks near the bottom in most global rankings on women’s freedom and status. American women, on the other hand, have no reservations. Their seats in the United States Congress are won on merit alone. And they aren’t faring too poorly at all.

Despite laudable intentions, the Women’s Reservation Bill that passed with a thumping majority in India’s upper house is deeply flawed because of its pitch and delivery. Parties on either side of the political spectrum have joined hands to support the bill in order to appear politically correct, but at the expense of being reasonable.

Empowerment ought to be the prerogative of all Indian women, not just some. Several critics have argued, rightly, that the majority of reserved female seats will be taken up by wives and daughters acting as proxies for established male leaders.

Not all women are equal. Some have distinct advantages over others; whether due to dynasty, religion, caste or myriad socio-economic factors. The arguments justifying reservations for women also end up justifying the case for providing sub-reservations to pinpoint what type of women can run for election to reserved seats.

Political parties field candidates based solely on their ability to win. Even for women’s constituencies, the candidates that they field are going to be the ones that have the best chances of winning the seat. Without sub-reservations, female candidates will be disproportionately represented by politically active, upper-class party members who have strong chances of victory.

A second, more serious, flaw could potentially accelerate the atrophy of credibility in our democratic system.

Parliamentary democracy is founded on the premise that in return for the vote; an elected MP will serve the people of the constituency. This creates accountability: the MP’s re-election hinges on the value of the service provided to the people. But all that is now changed.

The Bill’s rotational method of reservation will make two-thirds of parliament, about 360 members, one-term MPs. 181 women’s seats will get reserved in a general election, and 181 other general seats will be reserved for women in the following election. MPs will have little incentive to serve their electorate as they know they will be ineligible for the next election.

Women MPs can, of course, still seek re-election through what will become non-reserved seats. But that will be hard given that she will have to battle leaders who are well-established in the area after barely five years to nurse her constituency.

The rotational system will allow MPs to sate their personal interests for the duration of their term, instead of working for the people. If MPs are no longer going to be accountable to their electorate, and the foundational premise of parliamentary democracy is broken, then perhaps we should abandon our first-past-the-post parliamentary system for something that works better for the citizens.

But the still more damning criticism of the bill lies elsewhere.

As Jawed Naqvi has pointed out in Dawn, there is no proven linear relationship between the representation of women in parliament and their emancipation. Pakistan’s assembly has 22% female representation, he argues, more than double the figure in India. Yet Pakistan ranks near the bottom in most global rankings on women’s freedom and status.

American women, on the other hand, have no reservations. Their seats in the United States Congress are won on merit alone. And they aren’t faring too poorly at all.

The problem does not arise from legislative representation, but from social mindsets. The real tragedy is that Indian women suffer a thousand forms of discrimination.

Millions of girls die before they are even born – the stark foeticide, infanticide and dowry killing figures are testament to this. Girls that are lucky to make it into the world live a life of discrimination when it comes to nourishment, healthcare, education and opportunities for employment.

Those that do make it to the workforce are paid less than their male counterparts for the same roles, and have to live in fear of suffering the indignity of harassment, abuse and rape.

How much of this is going to change with more women in parliament? The Constitution and a numbers of laws already provide for gender equality. The problem does not lie in our society’s ability to pass women-friendly laws, but rather in implementing them at the grassroots level.

Indian women face problems because of the attitude of society. Without social understanding and acceptance, laws on gender equality are difficult to implement.

What we need is increased social activism in daily lives at the grassroots level, not more female legislators. If we need reservations for women, it is in the police forces, the judiciary and in the civil services – those bastions of male hegemony that implement the high-minded laws that we pass in the legislatures.

It is India’s entrenched exploitative system and her ability to enforce laws through the tentacles of government that needs to change, not the gender ratio in the parliament building.

The writer is a 2009 Teach For India fellow, and a writer and columnist for a variety of publications. Email: rakesh.mani@ gmail.com

Here's recent video of Prof Jayati Ghosh of Nehru University debunking the myth of the "Indian Miracle":