Wednesday February 5, 2003
INDIAN GOV'T USES POPULATION CONTROL INCENTIVES WHILE BRIDE CRISIS CONTINUES
HYDERBAD, February 5, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A government project in the Indian state of Andhra Pardesh is to give credits to rural health workers based on their success in persuading couples to have less children (or 'space their children' the current euphemism). Meanwhile, due to the abortion and infanticide of baby girls in the country, thousands of men are without brides in rural India.
The programme, to be carried out initially in the districts of Nalgonda, Khammam, Nizamabad, Mahbubnagar and Karimnagar, will see that couples who are married will receive congratulatory cards form the government including 'family planning' propaganda. The project is being implemented by the Andhra Pradesh Social Marketing Programme (APSMP), a non-profit arm of Hindustan Latex Limited, one of the largest contraceptive manufacturers in India, which is in turn funded by USAID.
The Times of India reports that under the project, 12 NGOs have been identified to train thousands of health workers on how to motivate couples to take up condoms, the pill and the IUD among other birth control methods. Performance incentives for the workers who ensure couples adopt the birth control methods include radios, refrigerators, cell phones and jewelry.
Dr. Jack Wilke, President of the International Right to Life Federation told LifeSite that offering incentives for population control often leads to coercive practices. "Such incentives have in some areas in the past and could in this situation lead health officials to be coercive in their push for couples to use abortifacient contraception, sterilization and abortion," he said.
Meanwhile abortion of baby girls and female infanticide have wreaked havoc with the proportion of women in the country leaving thousands of men unable to find brides. The BBC reports that some men have taken to "buying" wives from outside their communities.
Dr. Wilke told LifeSite of the efforts of the government to stop sex-selective abortions and female infanticide. However, he noted that the with the dowry system and the practice of brides being totally lost to their families of origin, the prejudice against the girl child will be difficult to defeat.
See related coverage from the Times of India and the BBC:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/comp/articleshow?artid=35859089
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2723513.stm
See evidence of USAID funding of Hindustan Latex:
http://www.usaid.gov/country/ane/in/386-007.html
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