For a country with an alarming decline in its child sex ratio as per the 2011 Census — 914 females per 1,000 males — a new device called the “silent observer” could be the answer to checking the rampant practice of aborting the female foetus in India.
The device would be attached to ultrasound machines which are routinely misused across the country for ascertaining the sex of foetus — if it’s a female, it’s often aborted. The “silent observer” is a device which maintains a log of all pregnancy tests done in a year and would help track under-reporting or false reporting of pregnancy termination cases. Now, in an attempt to carry forward its campaign to save the girl-child in India, the health ministry has asked the Norway-India Partnership Initiative to conduct a pilot study on the utility of the “silent observer”. The gadget was earlier introduced in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, by the state government on an experimental basis to prevent sex-determination tests as part of its “save the girl child” mission. About 200-odd ultrasound machines were fitted with the gadget.
“Even though the results were not so encouraging, we want to give the device yet another try. If some technology can help, it should be tried and tested. We will recommend it to the states only after we are sure of it’s efficacy. That’s why a study has been initiated,” said Anuradha Gupta, joint secretary in the Union health ministry.
The research system of the state health systems resource center in Pune had earlier questioned the feasibility of the device as they had found that the silent observer could easily be detached from the machine with a possibility of the machine being tampered with. But with the skewed child sex ratio showing any signs of improvement and female foeticide on the rise, the government has decided to go ahead with the new study. As part of its pilot study, the assessment on use of silent observer-also known as active tracker has been started by the experts in Kolhapur district. In another district of Maharashtra, the experts have started assessing online filing of “F” form (which provides detailed information on the pregnant woman and copy of which is sent to the district appropriate authority every month under the act) in Nanded district.